History of the studio

Studio Ghibli was founded in 1985 by animators and directors  Hayao Miyazaki and Takahata Isao  and producer Suzuki Toshio, in Tokyo, Japan (Bauer, n.d.). To date the studio has produced over 20 films, starting with its first official release Castle in the sky (1986). Since then, the studio has become beloved across the world through its production of its most popular films like, Spirited Away (2001), Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989), My Neighbour Totoro (1988) and Howl’s Moving Castle (2004).Spirited Away (2001) went onto be the second film ever (after Shrek) to win in the category of best animated feature (Bauer, n.d.).

This week in BCM320 we, as a class watched the 2018 Pakistani Film, Cake. Cake follows Zareen as her parents health issues bring her siblings Zara and Zain from their jobs and lives overseas. During the film they deal with loss, re-discover old loves and un-cover a long buried family secret that changes Zara’s perspective on her past. The film was very well received internationally and domestically in Pakistan, even having many of themain cast being nominatedat the 2019Lux Style Awards,a Pakistani award ceremony dedicated to cinema, television, fashion and music in Pakistan.

While i overall enjoyed the film, i did find it was a bit long and having to also live tweet at the same time, made it a bit hard to keep up with such a dialogue heavy story. This thought is one i have had in most of the screenings during this class…

For BCM320’s final viewing we set out to watch a few episodes of the 2018 Anime, Hi-Score Girl. Hi-Score Girl follows the life of Haruo Yaguchi and his life growing up in the 1990’s a Japanese village where he spends most of his free time playing video games in his local arcades. During the episodes that was watched in class, Haruo develops a rivalry and then later, a friendship with his classmate Akira Ono, a quiet girl who comes from a rich and high class family with very different expectations for her then what Haruo’s family has for him.

Something i really enjoyed about the show was the fact that all of the games they play and talk about during the show, are real games and ones that where popular during the time the show is set. Through looking into this a bit more, i found out that the arcade…

This week in BCM320 we watched the Vietnamese film, Furie. The film follows Hai, played by Victoria Ngo, as her daughter is kidnapped by human traffickers and she chases them from her small village to the nearby city of Saigon to find and rescue her daughter, when along the way she discovers her daughter is not the only child who they kidnapped.

During the film we find out details about Hai’s past, and why she is living in a small village as a single mother working as a debt collector. While I have very little connection to Vietnam, the film did a great job of show casing aspects of the culture and environment that would seem normal to someone who had a connection to it. Something that I was able…

In Week One for BCM320 – Digital Asia, our task was to watch and live tweet the Indonesian film Love for Sale (2018). This Film follows Richard, as he looks for a date to his friends wedding. After struggling to find anyone to take to the wedding (including his younger employee) he caves and decides to use a dating site/service. Richard didnt realise that the site had a 45 day contract and during this time he ends up falling for the woman who was sent to spend time with him, Arini. In our reflections of the films we will be watching for BCM320, we have been asked to take an auto-ethnographic approach, and draw on our own life experiences, and live tweeting thoughts when discussing these films. While i have been lucky enough to travel to a few countries in Asia, Indonesia is not one of them, and i don’t…