Friday 6 July 2007

Anime For Me

I love the anime Spirited Away.

I've been trying to find time to watch more of Hayao Miyazaki's stuff, but as always, life kinda gets in the way.

There is something very absorbing in Anime, it takes me back to my childhood memories in an odd sort of way.  I can't remember anything in my memories that tie with this.  It's more of a nostalgia I get when I watch them.  Does anyone else get that?

The film's directed by Hayao nearly all feature flying.  One of my early dreams was about flying too.  Who hasn't had one?  I wonder if that is the tie?

I've only had this dream once, but some 25 years on, I believe I vividly remember it.

It goes like this...

I find myself walking alone toward the seaside (Ayr, my hometown).  I notice that as I pick up pace toward running, I feel lighter.  I run harder and faster and lift slightly off the ground.

The feeling of floating in the air was simply beautiful.  I drift around the clouds, swaying and soaring up and down.

As the day ends, as the sun starts to drop toward the horizon, I find myself being pushed back toward the ground.

Now the odd bit here is that I start to see a group of, well let's say small hairy troll things with sharp weapons of a sort.  I am trying hard to push up and fly high to keep from the ground where they are.  They are chasing toward my landing spot, I see them running below me ready to get me!

I start to slow my pace in the air and push closer toward them, and just before my feet are grabbed I woke up in a sweat!  It was intense, pleasurable, scary, and clearly memorable.

That's one of the coolest things about dreams.  They never need to make any sense.

As I said, this happened ages ago, but the memory of the actual flying piece was amazing.  I get some little twangs of nostalgia for that dream when watching flying scenes from anime.  Something about their style captures that state of mind perfectly.

What's the most memorable dream you've had?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

A fellow Miyazaki fan! Spirited Away is probably my favourite. Howl's Moving Castle is also pretty good, along with most of his others!

Mark Aitken said...

I sort of stumbled on Spirited Away when a friend recommended it simply because of the original story.

Looking at the other titles Simon, you are totally right. There are many that I need to see.

I like the look of Porco Roso, Princess Mononoke and as you said Howl's Moving Castle.

There does seem to be a fascination with castles among the titles....

Anonymous said...

Princess Mononoke is of the same calibre as Spirited Away.

Anonymous said...

I love Spirited Away. I've got it on dvd. It's amazing. Dad loves it too. It's amazing.