But without having seen Sky Crawlers yet, the answers seem actually obvious, even straightforward to me, and I wonder why this film has such a mixed reception. Well, I’ll see.

I just watched the film again a couple of days ago, and it still had quite an impact on me. It’s typically Oshii in that although it’s quite slowly paced and spaciously packed, there’s actually a lot going on ideas wise. I think you’ll enjoy – but when you have seen it please do come back and let me know what you think.

Since visiting this other blog with the scans of the artbook, the moment I saw the extensive detailing on the cigarette packs, somehow I just assumed, the movie will be even more of an exploration of how detached people can be because of its’ echoing of old chinese and japanese world war era print designs and packaging.

I’ll have to wait patiently till they ship a copy to me.

Your take on the themes as to how it relates to anime’s constant recyclings of themes and children-character archetypes is interesting. If there’s anything to be regretted that’s associated to any of his work, is the fact that a hollywood adaptation of Ghost in The Shell is on its’ making. Hahah.

This was a good read! Thanks for whetting my appetite for this movie!

There’s a lot of interesting things going on – Oshii has a lot to say with this film, I think. One thing I noticed on a second viewing, that I didn’t mention in the review, is how the characters all have to talk in English when speaking to the media or public. I wondered if this was a commentary on successful anime directors feeling the pressure to try and impress Hollywood and foreign markets….?

@Andrew – Thanks again man! I have been planning a write up on both the Genius Party collections, but still can’t track down some of the first episodes and can’t find Beyonf anywhere. Any tips?

But, it goes about it in a way that is not glaringly obvious to the audience. I am glad it also ended on the note it did. It could have gone many different ways, but the route chosen was a good one.

I was absolutely blown away by the overall production quality. The sound in particular added a great amount of depth to each individual scene. The dogfight scenes are just beyond words really, probably some of the most well executed scenes of aerial combat that I have ever seen.

Thanks again for the excellent review. You will be doing one of Genius Party Beyond sometime soon right? Right?? You need to personally contact me as soon as that happens, haha.

. . . I am serious

o_O

I was definitely not awed, nor had that sense of satisfaction as say, when I watched Patlabor II, but it wasn’t downright dislike either. Maybe I couldn’t understand completely some of the more complex conversations the characters were having ( I watched it with no english subtiles ) so I hope to have another go at it, though not too soon I think. :]