P.K Dick vs General SF

What does Brown (2001) identify as the central themes and concerns of the novel? What elements conform to the wider generic features of SF?

Browne explores how P.K Dick often drew from real-life events and focused on how they affected individual people. He still allowed readers to see how the world as a whole was shaped by certain events, but he was more interested in the individuals struggle and the interconnectivity between these struggles.  More of the generic SF texts were often more concerned with “mad scientist and ravaging alien monsters” and generally discarded developing characters with emotional validity.

Browne also discusses Dick’s exploration of alternative worlds through text like the I Ching and The Grasshopper Lies Heavy.  The I Ching acts as a sort of guide to creating a better universe, while the Grasshopper is an actual account of an alternative world which could have certainly become a reality. In more generic SF there is more effort put into creating another ‘physical’ world with different landscape, creatures etc. They try to instil a sense of intrigues through the distinctly ‘unfamiliar’, but PK Dick correctly assumed there is much more intrigue in exploring alternative/false realities within our own existence.

Week 5/6: Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke.

The anime film, written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki,  Princess Mononoke follows the protagonist Ashitaka and his plight set in the Muromachi period in Japan.

Ashitaka takes the form of the Hero archetype, a young, idealistic male, undertaking a rite of passage. At the beginning of act one we see Ashitaka in his normal world, riding his red elk, yakul. This is until he realises something is wrong, there is a demon possessed Boar attacking the Emishi village. This challenge to Ashitaka's world is his call to adventure.

Ashitaka must kill the Demon possessed Boar but becomes injured and receives a curse on his right arm. Although the curse grants Ashitaka superhuman strength, it will eventually kill him and he must find a cure as advised by the oracle. Along the way he meets Jigo who is the mentor character in the film.

At the end of the film, Ashitaka and San return the head of the forest spirit, when the do this, the forest spirit falls into the lake and heals both San and Ashitaka. Ashitaka decides to stay back and rebuild the town but promises San that he will visit her in the forest.

Hi group 5. Only 4 people seriously active here, with no comments on other's posts. And note: please reply to direct questions from Karen or myself. Comments on others' blogs are part of the assessment.

Week Six: Anime

Is Anime High or Low Culture? 
According to Napier (2005), anime is seen as a popular, or low art in Japanese culture. But this is very much the view of the high culture elite. The younger generation of Japanese consider it a “cultural staple.” Regardless of whether it is high or low, Napier’s chapter “Why Anime?” points out that this is irrelevant. Due to its instant visual appeal and huge range of potential subject matter, audiences and styles, Anime, as an art form, is above judgement over its worthiness for the canon. It’s widespread acceptance has made it a cultural phenomenon, and it has become a mainstay of popular culture.

Subgenres
Rather than looking at anime as a genre, it’s much easier to look at it as a medium. “Watching anime” is like saying “I’m reading a novel” or “I’m listening to music” – You don’t know what the novel, or the music, or the anime is, it could be for kids (J.K. Rowling/The Wiggles/Pokemon) or it could be heavier stuff (Lovecraft/Burning Witch/Berserk). Anime contains a wide variety of genres within itself, many of which are familiar to western audiences, but some of which are not. Some of these unfamiliar ones are….
Josei & Seinen – Josei is aimed at women 18-40, usually has very realistic themes about love, romance, every day life. Seinen is highly sexualised, violent and phsycological. They deal with this subject matter in mature ways though. Aimed at adult men, 18-40.
Shonen & Shojo – Shonen contains a lot of action and adventure and are aimed at young boys. Alternatively, Shojo contains a lot of drama and romance and is aimed and young girls.
Shonen-ai & Shojo-ai - Similarly themed as above but these relate to same sex relationships, aimed at young adults.
Yaoi & Yuri – Taking cues from Shonen-ai and Shojo-ae, but with much more graphic content.
Mecha – Contains robots, a Japanese cultural obsession.
Bishounen – Usually deals with an androgynous male character whose “beauty exceeds gender.” These are usually aimed at young women in Japan.
Akuma – Like fantasy but deals more specifically with demons.
Ecchi – Light-hearted and full of sexual innuendos, these are usually aimed at young adults, kids in their early teens.
Hentai – Animated pornography, which presumably has many subgenres of it’s own.
Samurai – Mostly based in Japan’s Edo Period or contains themes from that time.
Tournament – Takes elements from some of the other genres (action, adventure etc) but focus’ around a tournament. This genre is borrowed a lot more in Japanese culture than in Western.
Frenetic – “Wild and weird”

Although some of these are familiar to western audiences, it’s usually not in a capacity as wide as a popular genre. Additionally, some of the themes therein are familiar to such audiences but usually not in an animated form. 

"Complete List of Anime Genres" Ani Recs. 29 August 2011. Web. Retrieved from http://anirecs.infinityanime.com/facade/anime-genre-list-with-descriptions on 16 September 2012

Napier, S. (2005). Why anime? In Anime: from Akira to Howl’s Moving Castle (pp.3-14). Hampshire:  Palgrave/ Macmillan

 Yumeka "What are the genres of Anime?" Mainichi Anime Yume. 3 May 2010. Web. Retrieved from http://animeyume.com/blog/2010/05/03/what-are-the-genres-of-anime/ on 16 September 2012

Week 7: Themes and concerns according to Brown

Brown (2001) identifies several themes and concerns in the novel, one being the examination of the universe through the principals of interconnectedness – or Jungian synchronicity. Tagomi, Juliana, Baynes and Frank Frink are like everything in life: interconnected. Then that the world in “The Man in the High Castle” is anything but an illusion, better worlds might exist. What if the Allies had lost the war? Dick is telling us that there is hope for a better world. In our real world the Allies have won the war but maybe Dick’s idea of a better world is the world of “The Man in the High Castle” in which the Allies lost. I think Juliana is a very close version of Dick.

I think the novel within the novel “The Grasshopper Lies Heavy” could be a real work of science fiction in our real world detailing an alternative world in which the Allies lost the Second Word War.

He also identifies the fear of implicit evil, the claustrophobic sense of being imprisoned in a world seemingly without hope, accretes inexorably.

But I think the main question Brown says Dick has raised is how might the march of circumstance effect the ordinary citizen.

Week 7: Science fiction / Speculative fiction

I don’t read or watch science fiction so I am not familiar at all with what it is but I have looked it up on the internet and this is what I found.

The difference between science and speculative fiction is that science fiction deals with imaginary but more or less plausible content, for example: future settings, futuristic technology and science, parallel universes, paranormal abilities, aliens… where as speculative fiction has a “what if?” condition that can be realistic or not but the rest of the story has to revolve about it in a strict scientific rigour, for example: a story set in the 1700’s in which white people would be the slaves and black people are the “upper race”. We start the story by “What if the roles were reversed?” and then the rest of the story would be very normal following that particular “what if?” condition.

I think “The Man in the High Castle” is a speculative fiction, according to the definition I have of it, it fits the characteristics of a speculative fiction with a “what if?” condition which is the victory of the Imperial Japan, Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany in a WWII that went from 1939 to 1947. Then the rest of the story follows a quite scientific rigour.