天空の城ラピュタ (Tenkū no Shiro Rapyuta)
9/10 — A classic for a reason.

Castle in the Sky is without a doubt one of the more well-known anime. While many series and movies come and go like passing fads, young kids in Japan today still know Laputa, and so do their parents. The reason for this is the many talented Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli. This movie originally came out the year I was born, and I am very happy to have the opportunity to watch it and bring the review to you now. I do feel it is a timeless classic that is suited to a wide variety of audiences.

First the basics:

Voice Acting: 9/10 — a diversity of characters with distinct personalities
(This pertains to the American Disney cast.)
The voice acting in the movie is quite exceptional. There are a number of big names, such as Mandy Patinkin, Mark Hamill, James Van Der Beek, Anna Paquin, and Andy Dick, among others. They deliver an exceptional performance in spite of occasionally awkward dialogue. They make the moments where you kinda wonder why the character said that seem much more natural than other voice actors would, and it makes it that much easier to slip into the realm of the story. Now, the characters do sound awfully stereotypical throughout, from Dola the boisterous pirate mother to Muska, who always sounds evil and sinister even when he’s faking being genuine in order to be persuasive. Pazu and Sheeta are less cliched, which is nice, but there are points where you start to like the secondary characters and they don’t always come through as unique.

Animation: 9/10 — Beautiful scenery and smooth, clear character action.
The backgrounds for this movie are amazingly well-painted; they’re simply beautiful. And while some people don’t particularly care for the Ghibli style of animation that is so recognizable in their films, it is still done very professionally. The actions are clear and recognizable — even some of the more complicated events in the movie you can readily discern what is occurring. The art aptly conveys what’s going on and the choices in camera angles and scene changes are also handled extraordinarily well. We get a lot of playing with distances and layering of various foregrounds with a number of things going on in the background — there’re no audiences of people standing still while things happen at the forefront. It really is about as good as it gets, and it sucks you right into the plot.

Music/Sound Effects: 10/10 — Exceptional.
Joe Hisaishi, a regular composer for Ghibli and also “Beat” Takeshi, is responsible for the music in Laputa. His style has that epic fantasy story feel, which is very appropriate for this film. There are moments that jog my memory of old Final Fantasy games and Chrono Trigger. Given the story, I think Hisaishi’s style fits right in, and it brings emotional emphasis to many of the scenes. There are also a variety of sound effects that play key roles in the action of Castle in the Sky. Everything from steam engines, to the organic sounds in the Laputian garden, to the many many explosions and gun battles — it’s all handled masterfully, and never do you think that either a sound has gone missing or feels misplaced with what’s going on; rather, the world is more fully fleshed out by the circumambient noises that’re included.

Story/Script: 8/10 — An epic tale, especially in the original Japanese
The Japanese script for the film is quite good; although, a little dated. The American rewrite for the dub is sort of crappy in that characters randomly use and dispose of information in jokes that they would not be privy to, and some of the line changes dumb down the original script and story. I for one think there’s a number of extra interesting details to Sheeta’s backstory that she reveals that get trimmed out of the American version. It is unfortunate. Still, the story is magnificent; it has a moral buried deep enough that you can recognize it, but it doesn’t get in the way; and it’s simply an enjoyable story to follow. You want to know what happens next, and I think that says a lot about the quality of the writing. Also, in spite of some changes in the English script, the dialogue is actually quite good, and the characters tend to come off as pretty natural, rather than forced or substituting for a narrator, etc.

The Technicals:
Produced by Isao Takahata and Studio Ghibli, and written and directed, of course, by Hayao Miyazaki. It was originally released on April 2nd, 1986, and has an approx. runtime of 126 minutes. It was also the first film created and released by Studio Ghibli.

Summary:
So the movie starts with a young girl, Sheeta, on an airship being attacked by a group of air pirates known as the Dola gang/clan.

It quickly becomes apparent that she is there against her will, and she uses the opportunity of the pirate attack to try and escape. And anyone who’s watched this movie that it was pretty sweet when the girl brained the government-looking official with a wine bottle. I know that’s when I fell in love with Sheeta, anyway. Castle in the Sky is often compared to Disney films, but show me where Dumbo takes matters so capably into his own trunk — I think the bravery already displayed by Sheeta is way more impressive and admirable than the more general morals displayed in Disney films.

However, Sheeta ends up falling off the airship, and is miraculously saved by the power of a crystal, which is clearly what the pirates were after. She falls down to earth, where a boy named Pazu catches her as she slowly descends towards the mine where he is working.

Pazu has to get back to work, but he takes Sheeta home with him — he’s looking after her, do you remember people ever being this good natured? That’s what I thought. No awkward moments while she’s asleep ensue — thank God this wasn’t a Shonen Jump manga first because you KNOW that he would of groped her by mistake or something. The next morning she wakes up to him blowing his horn — literally plays a trumpet atop his house for God knows what reason. And they have some cutesy conversation getting to know one another, while he explains to her what happened. So, in the dub there’s a line that comes out “if my head were any harder it’d be a cannonball” but in the Japanese it’s definitely closer to “my head is harder than the boss’s fists.” Oh how times change! This conversation comes about because Pazu thinks he knows how the crystal works, puts it on, and jumps off his house, only to crash down through the brick roof of the lower story. At least he had something to hit, he does live overlooking a giant canyon. We also find out that Pazu’s father once took a picture of Laputa, but no one believed it was real. A literary reference is cut from the American script here — for shame! — as Laputa is from Gulliver’s Travels by Swift, and Pazu mentions it in the Japanese.

Of course, the pirates come looking for Sheeta and the crystal, and somehow they end up at Pazu’s place rather fast. Sheeta and Pazu make a break for it with some of the town’s people helping out, only to run into the military and the government official, Colonel Muska, who Sheeta conked out with the wine bottle. Now, there’s a battle between the pirates and the military as they both try to capture Sheeta and Pazu, who are desperately trying to make their escape aided by the townspeople (take a deeeeeep breath).

In the chase, Pazu and Sheeta fall into the canyon and are saved by the crystal. Deep in an old mine Sheeta tells Pazu about her homeland, Gondoa, far to the north. Both her parents had died, and she worked the farm alone. Now, we notice a sort of common trend with characters. Sheeta was a hard-working farmgirl (doing a job that actually she probably couldn’t have done on her own, but we can overlook that, I suppose), and Pazu is a miner from a mining town.

Sheeta was abducted from her farm by Colonel Muska and his associates. Wandering around in the old mine, they run into Uncle Pom, who is crazy.

I burst out laughing when Uncle Pom said he doesn’t get lonely traversing the mines alone because the rocks talk to him. Of course, the story validates him because all the rocks glow in a sort of way. Apparently glowing means speaking. Uncle Pom would go deaf in Vegas. Uncle Pom, upon seeing Sheeta’s crystal, warns them that misuse of such power will only bring misery, and the crystal should remind us all that we come from the earth and it is to the earth that we will return — very heavy-handed, and it seems a little random; the ominous foreshadowing is a bit overdone, and while the moral message is clear, I’m not sure how you quite get that out of glowy, powerful crystal, ooh-aah. For some reason the Japanese call the crystal something like Volucite, and the American version is Aetherium (it’s probably wordplay in the Japanese similar to that in the American, I just don’t get it, ah well).

Once out of the cave, the pair is immediately cornered by the military, captured and brought to the military’s island of doom!

Therein, Pazu is tossed into an oubliette-like spot, and Sheeta is taken to a normal bedchamber. Apparently the national past time has become hauling around unconscious little girls. A strange bit of translation goes on here too: in the American script Muska lies and tells Sheeta that Pazu is being treated very well, and in the Japanese he tells her not to worry because Pazu is more stubborn than he is. Also, the second omitted literary reference is here. In the Japanese, Muska asks, sarcastically, if Sheeta thinks that Laputa is like Treasure Island — for shame! why cut so many lit references? Makes me sad. And Muska shows Sheeta a mechanical soldier that fell from Laputa, and seems to be the reason the government has taken such a strong interest in what was, until recently, considered a myth.

We shortly find out that Sheeta is the true heir to the throne of the kingdom of Laputa, and in order to save Pazu she agrees to help the military. She then gets weepy because Pazu was such a cutie, and she let him get away. Also Pazu tries to scale the wall of his prison to no avail, but he still scales halfway up the damn wall! What is this? Uncharted?!

When Pazu gets home the pirates are waiting for him, but after a heart to heart with the mother of the pirates and their leader/captain/etc., Pazu teams up with them to try and save Sheeta (the pirates of course are still after the crystal).

Meanwhile, Sheeta remembers the words to awaken the crystal from when she was young, and this in turn brings the giant robot man back to life. Chaos ensues. The military thinks they’ve killed the robot, and this happens:

The military is continuing to try to destroy the robot just as the pirates show up.

They manage to rescue Sheeta, but not the crystal. The crystal is mysteriously left on, so to speak, pointing the way to Laputa.

Pazu and Sheeta join up with the pirates as members of the crew. Pazu becomes the engineer’s, Pops, assistant, and Sheeta becomes the cleaning lady/cook.

Many of the pirates become attracted to Sheeta because she starts wearing Mom’s old clothes; though, the age difference is somewhat disturbing, it’s more funny than creepy. The pirates, of course, are also heading for Laputa.

Pazu and Sheeta manage to spend some time together when it’s Pazu’s turn to go on watch; they share a cloak; it’s cute. Sheeta confesses her feelings about not wanting to actually find Laputa because of the dangers: the bit here is a bit better fleshed out in Japanese, as in the writing is more thought out and convincing than the dumbed down version that Disney created in their English dub. Both Dola and the pirates overhear this conversation. Of course Dola thinks it’s sweet, and the pirates are grief stricken because it’s obvious Sheeta only has eyes for Pazu. The conversations comes to an abrupt halt when Pazu and Sheeta realize they’ve caught up with the military’s air destroyer, Goliath, and are flying above it.

The pirates manage to escape the Goliath in the cloud cover, but they have to follow it in order to track it to Laputa. Sheeta and Pazu go up in a glider attached to the pirate’s airship to keep watch. They see a massive cloud coming up ahead, which appears to be a hurricane.

It sucks them in and detaches the glider that Sheeta and Pazu are on, but Pazu is fairly certain that inside the giant cloud lies Laputa.

They manage to get through the storm and discover an amazing garden with robot remaining to tend it; all the others have broken down over the years. Various animals roam the area.

Then there’s an explosion, and it becomes apparent that the Goliath and its crew of several hundred soldiers has managed to land on Laputa as well. Sheeta and Pazu investigate and realize that the pirates have survived, but were taken prisoner.

Meanwhile, the army begins to loot the city, and Muska heads off on his own, looking for something else.

He captures Sheeta, but Pazu gets away. Pazu frees the pirates, and Muska finds what he was looking for — the heart of Laputa. It turns out Muska is also of noble blood from the kingdom of Laputa.
According to him Laputa has been without a king for 700 years, and Laputa is the source of several ancient myths: in Hinduism, Ramayana’s arrow, and in the Christian/Jewish Old Testament, the fire from Heaven that destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. Muska then proclaims his sovereignty and uses the power of Laputa to kill most of the military present.

And awakens a ton of extra robot dudes. Pazu has managed to cling to the underside of Laputa this whole time and finally gets back in to find his way to Sheeta.

Meanwhile, Sheeta has managed to take the crystal from Muska and is hectically trying to escape. She gets the crystal to Pazu through a crack in the wall, and Muska chases her into the throne room, where he proceeds to shoot off her pigtails — I know, WTF?! Pazu arrives and bargains the stone in exchange for a chance to talk with Sheeta. Muska of course is an idiot and says ok, I can’t possibly see any harm in letting you speak to the girl who can apparently cast spells. And then they cast the spell of destruction because Pazu has the stone.

Oddly enough, the spell to activate the stone was some four obscure sounding words, and the spell of destruction is hardly even a syllable. Muska randomly goes blind, the kids appear dead, and just like every Indiana Jones movie, the legendary structure that has gone on for hundreds to thousands of years a-okay collapses into itty bitty rock bits.

Even though the technology center of Laputa is destroyed, the roots of the giant tree at the center of the city catch the giant crystal that was holding the city aloft, and Laputa takes off!

And NO, Sheeta and Pazu aren’t dead. They find the glider they came in on and glide down to the pirates. In a hilarious moment of characters knowing things they could have no way of knowing (which happens a lot, especially in the English dub; this error for instance, doesn’t happen in the Japanese), Dola comments to Sheeta that there’s nothing worse than having your pigtails shot off. The pirates actually managed to secure a good deal of treasure, and Sheeta and Pazu glide off together. The End.

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SUPRA SKYTOP GREY GUNNY 130€

SUPRA SKYTOP TUF WHITE GUNNY 130€

So here  we have a first look at the highly-anticipated Supra Skytop II via colette. The Supra Skytop II will be available in a very limited quantity (600 pairs) in this “gradient” colorway on November 21st, 2009. Each pair of the  Skytop II’s is individually numbered.

Sorry for the lack of music…

Stay tuned!

The Corner is shaping up and shipping out.

Enter to win your very own Kr3w & Supra package…

Details under “The Corners Contest’s”

(P.s. this friday is going to start the Product Review section off with a bang. Literally.)

I got a shit ton of Johnny Lups footy today… Got to edit it down…

Plus… this Brandon Turner sketchy sunday was too good to wait ’til sunday to post…

Enjoy!

-PB Pub time with truck…