re: #240 wheat-dogg

I think I just need to devote several weekends watching anime films. I have Mononoke and Totoro, but haven’t watched them yet, and need to borrow Nausicaa from my stepson, or watch it some other way.

They are both somewhat pessimistic about human nature and the environment. Miyazaki has said in interviews that ‘Japan is doomed and should just get it over with’; it struck me though that a character in Natsume Soseki’s novel Sanshiro says while gazing out a train window looking at Mt. Fuji “Japan is doomed” (ca. 1912 or so). I think that’s been an important strain in the Japanese psyche and arts for centuries.