Hayao Miyazaki is my all-time favorite animator and Studio Ghibli is my favorite film studio. His works inspire me to follow my dreams and to never stop being the quirky, creative girl that I was born to be. I'm sure I'm not the only one that feels this way. His movies have touched so many. It's really fantastic. Miyazaki was born on January 9, 1941 in the town of Akebono-cho in Tokyo. His views on the world were shaped mostly by his mother. She would often question things that were socially accepted. Hayao had 3 siblings, and his family owned Miyazaki Airplane, which made rudders for fighter planes during World War 2. These planes were the influence for many creations to come. In his young life, Miyazaki loved comic books and wished to become a manga artist when he was older. One of his favorite manga artists was Osamu Tezuka, the creator of Astro Boy. Later on he decided he wanted to look into and study animation more instead, although he has done some comics throughout his career. Miyazaki joined other projects before Studio Ghibli and did character designs for television shows and other little things like that. He always wanted to do more, and was at times disappointed at the lack of originality presented. His first major film was Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, which was adapted from one of his popular manga. It's success led to the formation of Studio Ghibli where Miyazaki could continue to make movies in his vision. American audiences soon caught on and the studio's fame spread worldwide. The first movie of his I saw was Spirited Away while I was on a field trip with my class in 3rd grade. The beautiful, unique animation caught my interest and I couldn't look away. It was a little weird, but nonetheless gorgeous. From then on, I've been a fan. I saw Ponyo, then Kiki's Delivery Service, then Howl's Moving Castle, and so on. I truly believe his films will live on as undying classics.
Vampires have been such a huge deal lately with all the movies, books, and tv series' being made about them. You have your Twilight, your Vampire Diaries, your True Blood and all that, but what brought them your way? Who inspired the interest and shaped our modern day vampire dreamboats? I'll tell you right now. Dracula - Bram Stoker's Dracula, that's who, that's what. Somewhere along the line, I'll tell you howtoo. Dracula is an old book, published in 1897, so like most of the oldies I've read it's got a lot of words. Most of the novel is written in journal entries by the characters, and other times letters or notes. While this makes for interesting story-telling, sometime during the middle the details get to be a bit too much for someone interested in the key points of the plot. I felt I would enjoy it better if there was less rambling in between the good stuff. Some transitions in between character journals got on my nerves as well. It'd switch from suspense to romance to friendship to horror all without comfortable transitions. I get that characters were experiencing different things at each point in the story, but the abrupt change in tone disappointed me when things were getting exciting, and those were treasured times for how slow the in-universe journalists chose to tell it. I know that I can't recommend reading Dracula to anyone who likes fast action and events. The pacing reminds me very much of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, another famous monster novel that I enjoyed thoroughly. The most memorable part for me would be Jonathan Harker's stay at Castle Dracula (which to my great surprise wasn't the entire book). It was suspenseful, eerie, and at the same time kind of comfy. I can't put my finger on if it was because I liked the setup or what. What interested me most from my time spent on the book was realizing the symbolism and metaphors hidden within the text. Entire essays have been written about Dracula's many themes and probable influences for them. To keep it PG, I won't go into too much detail. Most of these themes have to do with sexuality, a couple homosexuality, and others to do with women's role in Victorian society. Even the Count himself was a metaphor. Stoker's novel was the first piece of literature to present vampires as alluring. However Dracula is no Edward Cullen, believe you me. No, not even close! In fact, he's not even Hollywood's vision of Dracula. Stoker wrote him as an old man, bald with a white mustache. Still, characters were drawn to him like he was the handsomest guy around. Who'd have thought? So I've said my piece. I suppose it's time to end it here. Did I like the book? Yes. It was fun to delve into the origins of vampires and where all this stuff came from. Plus, by doing so I understood a few references in a recent animated film... bonus points for josie
