This is a Bergen Film Club podcast.
Hello and welcome to The Real Thing. I am Joe Lawrence and I am going to be your host.
And first and foremost I am so excited to be doing this podcast. I love podcasts,
I spend a lot of my time listening to them and it brings me a lot of joy to have been given the
opportunity by Bergen Film Club to couple up with them lovingly, romantically and make our baby,
which is this podcast. That was a nice analogy anyway. So this podcast is sort of an addition
of Bergen Film Club. I'm going to be looking at the films that Bergen Film Club includes in
their program. Historically, present or upcoming, I'm going to be talking about all of the films
and I'm very, very excited to be doing that and getting started and sharing what is such a cool
institution at the heart of Bergen, Norway. I've been a member of the film club for about a year
as a volunteer and it's great. It's such a lovely environment. Everyone is so nice. It's a great way
to get to know people and it's very cozy and they show great films, which is probably the
most important thing. I most recently became a board member with my job being this podcast. So
again, just thanks so much for this opportunity and I'm sure you guys are listening. Hi, thank you.
And let's get started. So I'm sure that some of you might be wondering what Bergen Film Club is
and don't worry. I've thought about it too and there will be an episode at some point regarding
the history and what Bergen Film Club is. But for now, I can tell you that Bergen Film Club
has existed since 1961 and it is essentially a film club, independent cinema in Bergen, Norway.
Its goal is to show films that the other films and the other cinemas in Bergen are not showing,
trying to show work from minorities and those disenfranchised groups, classics that are no
longer seen on the big screen and forgotten treasures from relevant creators today. Just
giving a voice to those who need a voice whilst also just sharing a love and a passion for cinema.
But there will be an episode discussing that at some point. So don't worry about it. You will get
to learn the history. I thought that a good way to get started, which is something that I always
love in podcasts before we're diving in together into the meat of the episode, is to just enjoy
each other's company and I thought it would be nice to just share some recommendations because
that's always nice. So the podcast that I've been listening to a lot recently is the podcast Buried
Bones from Exactly Right Media. I am a huge true crime fan and I'm sure that I'm not alone in that
and honestly this podcast is just cream of the crop, delicious true crime excellence. It is
the fantastic Kate Binkler-Dawson who is a professor, a journalist, an author, podcast queen
and she is doing this podcast with Paul Holes who is this very famous American detective
who solved huge cases from the 1990s and basically them together she presents him with
a historic case and he tries to solve it with the limited information that she gives him throughout
the episode. It's very good and it's so cute because they're such big fans of each other and
just check it out. Literally anything on the Exactly Right Media podcast network is fantastic
so definitely give that a listen. In terms of TV, I'm not a huge TV head at the moment but I did
just start the series You Season 4. I think that that is a trashy show but I keep coming back to
it and you know they're in England now, I'm from England and it's uncomfortable to
really get a sight of what Americans truly believe English people are like so that is kind of
painful and the stereotypes are a bit grim at times but it's fine. You know it's a TV show,
I'm watching it but the thing that I have been absolutely, I must tell people about this,
but not that it is like a hidden show or anything but the TV show Love is Blind on Netflix Season
3. I am not particularly a huge fan of reality TV anymore. I used to be a huge fan but it made me
super depressed because I couldn't face the reality of this is what the world is actually like for
extremely rich people. This show is like no other reality TV show that I've ever seen,
it's people getting engaged without seeing each other, spending a week with each other and then
decide if they get married. It's just insane, it's a ride, it's emotional, it's human so check that
out for sure. I find myself questioning myself a little about why I like it so much but honestly
if you just like good produced television, good entertainment and sit down with a delicious meal
for 45 minutes and Love is Blind. Now pivoting to maybe a more relevant recommendation, I recently
watched Elvis 2022. I'm trying not to have too strong opinions on this podcast because I feel
like listening to someone hate on something that you love is not good listening so I'm going to
be diplomatic with my review of this. I am not particularly fond of Baz Luhrmann's directing
style, I found it overwhelming and I found it loud so going into Elvis I wasn't so sure that
it was something that I would like and I was right. It was very fast and it felt like a two hour
trailer for a movie which was interesting. Tom Hanks, probably the worst acting that I've ever
seen from him. Saving Grace absolutely, Austin Butler was incredible in that role. He is firstly
just the embodiment of Elvis which is crazy. He sings just like him and moves and speaks like him
and it's incredible and on top of that he's also really handsome so that's great and yet I can see
why he got that Oscar nomination absolutely deserved for that but it's just like I said,
I'm not such a big Baz Luhrmann fan so that film was never going to be a hit for me but definitely
watch it if you haven't seen it because I learn a lot from it. I'm not a fan of the movie,
I learn a lot about Elvis and I love to learn and just watching for Austin Butler's performance
alone is honestly worth it given the length of the film. So Birkin Film Club is now solidly into
its spring semester catalogue program of films. So we had our opening a couple weeks ago and since
then we've shown some Brian De Palma movies which is something that we might eventually talk about.
It was a very controversial topic. He's the director of Scarface and Carrie and many other films,
many other films that a lot of people consider terrible movies so there's definitely been a lot
of discussion about that. An upcoming film that we have and a film that is going to feature on
the podcast is the documentary Tickled so definitely keep that in mind because we are
going to definitely talk about that because it's a strange phenomenon if you don't know what it's
about. It's about an underground tickling competition I suppose and it's a bit insidious
but it's also very very interesting so definitely keep an eye out for that and
let's just begin with our first movie of this podcast. We are going to be talking about the
film Your Name. So Your Name was a 2016 anime film written and directed by Makoto Shinkai.
When it was released it was met with huge critical acclaim for its visuals, its music
and the emotional weight of the story and this acclaim was felt globally. It's one of the few
films in recent years to have a huge reception outside of Japan which was very exciting for this
director. Since then he has gone on to make a couple new films similarly also very successful
with Weathering with You in 2019 and Suzume in 2022. So my goal here in the podcast is to sort
of explain this film in a spoiler-free-ish way because I think ideally you should watch the film
because I can't stress this enough about how lovely this film is. Genuinely it is just the
sweetest hug of a film and if you haven't seen it now you are doing yourself a disservice without
even knowing it. So the plot of the film is it's following a 17 year old high school girl called
Mizuhara Miyamizu who lives in a remote town which is located in Japan's mountainous Hida region.
She is kind of bored and disinterested with living in the countryside and she wishes and dreams of
being a handsome boy living in Tokyo in her next life. The movie utilizes then a body swap
storytelling device since one day Mizuhara wakes up in the body of a boy who actually lives in Tokyo.
The body swap is not permanent but instead it's random and there are days when they wake up in
the other person and there are days that they don't and they kind of try to discover who each
other are by leaving each other messages through writing or on their bodies trying to basically
find out what is happening here and what this connection that they have eventually leading to
are if they can try and meet each other and it's just so beautiful and it explores kind of like
how it is to live the life that you dream of and be with the person that you are dreaming of and
like I said it's just such a such a gorgeous beautiful film and it has these general themes
to sort of love and the coming of age destiny sort of a supernatural time element all based
around this freaky friday concept which is just so awesome. Makoto Shinkai utilizes digital tools
to make his movies as opposed to Studio Ghibli which tend to use drawing. This allows him to
so this allows him to make these really stunning visuals without having to dedicate
maybe thousands of hours of work. I was reading that he made a short film very early in his career
where he did the drawing by hand process and when he finished it he was just like
yeah I'm not going to do that again that was too much work and it was the product wasn't worth it
I'm just going to leave that to the the masters themselves Studio Ghibli which is which is fair enough.
He uses a lot of inspiration from events that are affecting people in Japan
but in a way that I think that which is such a beautiful thing about all of his films is that
there is this human connection baseline plot all the time so you have these themes that sort of
transcend culture and language and allow anyone to identify with the characters on the screen.
He says that without giving too much away in your name there is some sort of natural disaster event
and he was inspired by the the numerous natural disasters that Japan experienced in the early
2010s. This was the great earthquake in eastern Japan and also the nuclear meltdown in Fukushima
and the fallout that occurred from all of that literally and figuratively. This way that he's
inspired by saying that this could be you this could happen to you this could happen to your
family and what would that be like for the person who maybe isn't directly affected by it but
a family member a friend and I think that's just why his films come off in such this
pinpoint accurate emotional beautiful way is that he looks at this human experience
and these feelings that everyone shares and that's what makes his films really really so beautiful.
But fret not this podcast is not just me talking for the whole 50 minutes I sat down with Matthew
Beatty to talk about this film and anime in general. So Matthew who uses they then pronouns
is a 22 year old non-binary filmmaker. They had a film premiere at the Luma Film Festival
the film The Family and Friends of Emily Fairhurst which takes a look and follows the journey of
this girl as she goes through successive years of therapy leading up to her making a very big
decision about her own life and her relationships. It's a very beautiful film and Matthew really
captures what I was saying this sort of human experience that a lot of young people especially
are feeling and it's a really gorgeous gorgeous film. Right now they're working in post-production
in social media and it was so fun to to talk to them about this. I definitely do not consider
myself an authority on anime at all and I really do consider them an anime connoisseur you could
say. So it was really great and I had a lot of fun talking to them about this movie and this genre
in general. Hi Matthew. Hi. Thank you so much for being on the first episode of this podcast.
That's fine. Thanks for having me. Good sport. Thank you for putting your trust that this is
going to be something worth your time. Of course it is. Any excuse I have to talk about films
I'll go for it. I'll go for it dog. Yeah and especially this film it's a very good one
to start with I think. Yeah and especially to talk to you about as someone I consider
an anime aficionado. So yes we are talking about Your Name and I just thought that I'd start
lovely plain and simple. Matthew why do you like this film? Right well I'd watched it when it came
out and it came out in like 2016 I think and I really enjoyed it then but I did a film degree
at uni and for the first year we had to watch like a different film every week for the story
module and like looking at like different ways that narratives work and various different pieces
of cinema. In one of them was Your Name discussing non-linear storytelling because when you think
about both characters you kind of jump back in between their lives in some sections aren't told
in order and it all comes together at the end and I think it's fantastic in that way that
I would say a non-linear screenplay is definitely harder to pull off and also
but it's more satisfying when everything ties together and I feel like that this film does it
really really well. I also love the style that Makoto Shinkai has as director in both the kind
of animation style that they have and also just the direction of it overall and you can definitely
see it in his other works like Weathering With You and stuff it's very distinct and that's why I like
obviously about a lot of like directed works is that like I'd like it when you can tell that a
director's business I mean Wes Anderson comes to mind and stuff so like is an example of a
like a primary stylization and I think how big anime is at the moment is like you need something
that's going to make your work stand out in order for it to kind of like really make significant
impact on like a western audience and stuff. Anyway that's like a complete like I guess I
kind of broadened it but yeah I really liked it for the non-linear storytelling. I think the
characters were written really well as well. I think I also like the it's a very weird thing I
think that only like anime can get away with is that like in between even despite it not being a
musical there's just like there's the song in between like I think it's around halfway through
the film it kind of breaks up the sections but I've seen it done in other anime things as well
and that's kind of the theme song of the because it's kind of it's hard to explain it's like it's
the theme song of the film but it's like vocal and it's not at the start or like the credits
whatever it's like the middle like the it's like I think it's like around like the end of the first
act or something but it works with every yeah it works with everything that happens as well.
I think a really interesting thing that the researchers of the podcast showed us that is
that so the film is different from sort of the anime films that we're used to in the sense that
it's done completely digitally yeah it's like no drawing but that was the thing that they said about
making the score and making the songs is that they had this band that they worked with Radwimps
it was this like big j-pop band and they made the score the same time that they were making the film
oh okay it was like this the score was influencing the characters and the film
and the drawing at the same time that it was also influencing it the other way so I think that's a
really interesting like a very unique way of making a film I think because it the score is something
that usually comes afterwards. My mate used to say to me my mate Kamini he's always like
a soundtrack makes a film and I used to be like that's stupid like I don't agree but now I well
I used to be I don't agree but now I completely agree with that like after I would say when I
started film school I was like I don't know like the soundtrack is just an extra thing but
after like studying it and like watching more and more stuff you kind of realize how much of an
impact like the score and the soundtrack has on conveying certain emotions to the audience and
also how it tells the story in conjunction to the visuals and I think the perfect example is
your name in the sense that the soundtrack was obviously made simultaneously to the visuals so
it feels very intertwined and again it's this entire idea about time and how that's like you
know interpreted in the film so it works very well. Yeah for sure like everything that you
can't say in words you can say in music. I wanted to talk to you like you just mentioned time is
one of the themes of this film alongside love, destiny, juxtaposition of you know countryside
and city, girl, boy, coming of age is a theme that is seen in so many animes and so many anime
films. I feel like you'd be hard pressed to find an anime that doesn't have coming of age included
in the in the genre list. What do you think about that is what makes it so popular to us
and so accessible with having this coming of age theme? I think with a lot of anime especially
it's kind of the audience, the target audience is like young adult and teenagers and I think a lot of
Gen Z in like kind of young adult yeah Gen Z, adult audiences look for relatability in media
especially I do I mean I wrote my entire dissertation on like interpretation with characters
based on someone's like based on their own personal identity and stuff and I think coming
of age is like literally one of my favorite genres of film and I think it is because when I feel the
most connected to characters when I see how they act on screen and it being real and it being in a
way that I would react to certain situations or things that I would experience in my life I mean
even from the I forgot their names but the girl character she has like a part-time job in it or
something or is it the guy I think the guy has a part-time job in it and I was like I used to work
in hospitality and I can like totally relate to that and I know that's completely like a side
like a side part of his character that isn't like really heavily involved in the story at all
but it's just like the little things that make you feel like you can relate to the characters I
guess like they feel like real people and I think with coming of age it's easier to feel more
empathetic and like it's easier to care about the characters more if you find them relatable as well
and that gives you more of a stronger connection with what you're watching so I think there's that
and I mean I think it's easy to interpret coming of age genres in anime the most because a lot of it
does a lot of animes do just involve like a lot of young adult characters and teenagers so it's an
easy genre to kind of implement in the work because you are you see a lot of animes that
have coming of age elements but it's a romance or it's still an action so it's still in there but
I think some of them like take it further I think your name is like a perfect example because it is
a romance I guess at the end of the day by the end it is like they find a connection between them but
you see both of their lives from obviously the different environments that they grew up in and
how they kind of are different people in those lives so you're basically seeing a coming of age
story of these two separate people and then how they all want to come together and then it's a
coming of age story with like it's a coming of age romance story once they realize that they have
that connection they start swapping bodies and stuff yeah that's such a nice sentiment that's
like a really nice way to think about it like ultimately like we go to the cinema to see a good
story but I think that's what we can find so pleasing about film is you want to see yourself
you want to see your own personal struggles so that you feel validated in a way so in order to
jump too far away from that but I just wanted to say that this next question that I have for you
is something that I'm prepared for I'm prepared for a rant and prepared for some big opinions from
you I was gonna ask you what is your favorite anime oh okay well actually well it's funny
because I'm wearing this fleece right and I did not just put this on I said a joke because I was
like I was like I'm gonna put this fleece on because I'm cold and I did put it on because I was cold
but it is this isn't my favorite anime but it's one of my favorite it's like I don't know if you
can see it but it's like cut out of these two characters from beastars anyway but that's like
a fantastic one but um it's my favorite anime of all time is a neon genesis van gillion I think
it's incredible came out in like 95 96 this guy director Hideki Hideo I would say that it's it
can be argued that it basically paved the way of modern shonen today so I was curious what did they
mean by shonen anime shonen typically refers to the age or the protagonist of an anime it's usually
referring to a young boy around the age of 15 this also is referring to the demographic that these
shows are aimed at a lot of these animes and mangas have a young male hero and the focus of the show
is action adventure and fighting matthew also mentioned something called mecha anime which I
was curious to know what that was mecha is a genre of japanese anime that heavily features
or focuses on mechanical innovation the umbrella of mecha everything underneath that is robots
cyborgs androids space stations space travel however it seems that the main focus of these
animes is using the inclusion of robots um because basically it's a mecha anime at heart you know
it's this thing of like kids like in like in robots that are like fighting and all that stuff
okay but it but in like in reality once you get without spoiling it too much once you get more
and more into it it kind of deconstructs the shonen genre in a sense that going back the coming
of age thing you always see these like especially in action animes you always like have these like
like 15 year old kids like destroying buildings and stuff in like fighting crime and it's like
evangelion kind of takes that idea and it's like it got the anime from the 80s and looked at all
these more like popular shonen's that time was like what would happen if you actually got like
this 14 year old kid to do that like and basically just shows like the mental health side of it and
like okay it's a really it turns from a action mecha to like a psychological horror and it's
fantastic really yeah i could go on and on about it i think it's amazing um it was very good
there's basically there's like the show is 26 episodes long and then without spoiling too much
episodes 25 and 26 um were controversial with what was in it and not in a kind of sense of
um censorship or anything but more in a sense of the fans were not really happy with what with
what's in there in what was produced but basically because of that hideki ano the guy who directed
it was like okay i'm gonna release a hour and a half film uh which is basically an alternate ending
and that ended up being like one of the um best anime films of all time it's critically acclaimed
it's got that it's got that top like i think it's in like the top 25 highest rated films on
letterbox it's got that letterbox cosine it's it's and it's in my like top like top five films of
all time it's really incredible what frustrates you though is that like i think end of evangelion
is amazing i think it's an absolute masterpiece i actually like the film more than the actual show
but in order for me to recommend the film you have to watch the show first it's just the
right amount that you need to watch the show first but um yeah and i think um with evangelion i think
again it's down it is coming of age is this 14 year old kid who's been told that he needs to pilot
these robots or else aliens are going to like destroy the entire world but it kind of takes
a step back like i said and says if a 14 year old was told to get in a robot or else like the entire
world's gonna end like how would a kid actually react and right what kind of mental toll would
it have and it's a very much a deconstruction of that rather than like you know standard
shonen animes have this like kid who can like do anything and it's just like constant action and
just a constant it's it's made to be you know an entertainment taining piece of work and so is
evangelion there's action scenes and stuff like that but it does more than that and there's a
lot you can say about it as well in terms of um i mean the sexuality there's lgbt stuff um okay
interpreted in it as well during the end of this show again don't want to spoil anything
at this point i decided to ask matthew about the accessibility of anime to western audiences both
about the themes being accessible but also similarly genuinely just accessing anime for
the longest time it was very difficult for western audiences to watch anime and it was only available
on certain websites such as crunchyroll which was a streaming service that had a huge library of anime
subtitled and dubbed in english one of the most popular animes to come out of this which inspired
this whole new anime wave was the anime attack on titan which follows essentially a group of
child soldiers fighting against these man-eating titans which are these grotesque giant skinless
sometimes monsters that are threatening the human race matthew goes on to discuss how streaming
services such as netflix and amazon prime realized what a lucrative business venture this could be to
invest in anime since there was such a large audience watching it already and that maybe the
success of anime in the west is actually driven by capitalist greed i think a lot of the reasons why
attack on titan was very popular in like a western audience because it was easily accessible so
before before netflix acquired evangelion i think it was in 2017 they bought the rights to the show
there was no legal way to find the show apart from buying the physical dvds or vhs tapes
or i think they would allow or like because it wasn't available this is when i feel like
since eva came out in the late 90s it wasn't really a show that was a straighter streaming
service show or it and since it was made by gynax with like an anime company they don't have a set
kind of like um streaming service themselves it's like crunchy roll but crunchy roll didn't have
access to that show as well and i think like for example beastars which is a show another anime show
that is being made for netflix so that's instantly on netflix and i think attack on titan came out
in around 20 i think 2013 when the first season came out and that was when like streaming like
anime streaming services were like at its peak like not only was crunchy roll being subscribed to
and it was also like netflix in amazon prime and stuff they were starting to understand how much
money in how much kind of income the anime medium gets not only in japan but in like a western
audience so they started investing in anime because you had stuff like sawdust online which
is like not very good show at all but that is like the impact that that had is like massive because
you have these gateway shows like if somebody watches attack on titan or sawdust online they'll
start getting into more and more shows i got this friend sam not in anime like at all and i was like
i want you to watch evangelion it's my favorite favorite show of all time but if you want to get
into anime i would recommend attack on titan first then watch evangelion because i feel like it
introduces it's a perfect introduction to like the genre and it's the same with films like i would
say ghibli films and mccutche and kais stuff like weathering with you in your name in mamoru hosoda
films like summer wars and um mirai and um girl who let through time they're all like fantastic
things to introduce you to the anime medium before you get into like other shows that might be a bit
harder to understand or like kind of harder to grasp like that's the way i see it definitely is
that accessibility um yeah it is a massive thing in terms of international media and how we access
it is like kind of determines how popular it is in certain areas but i think that's like such an
epic thing it was something that i wanted to talk to you about this whole accessibility thing because
it's not even physically not being able to get it but the cultural references are so different
yeah you know like in your name for example there's this whole the whole part where she is
with her her grandmother and she's making an offering at the shrine and she makes this
arcade that's like a fermented starter from human saliva which is like weird but yeah of course we
say it's weird because it's a it's a different culture but it's a thing that we don't understand
but i think that's why shows like attack on titan or maybe your name can be so popular in the west
because they're not so like specifically about japan yeah in a way and maybe that's why it makes
them so popular but then almost feels like it's a shame it's like the we we're popularizing it
ourselves through dubbing for for an example yeah you can sort of change the narrative slightly
there and make it accessible to the western audience by sacrificing what makes it like
intrinsically japanese yeah yeah i i i agree that it's a shame because i mean even in um the
evangelion redub and they changed a few of the lines which a lot of people weren't happy with
which they said centered uh the gay relationship in it and yeah so it was a more like changing like
i love you too i like you and stuff like that and people took that the wrong way which i think
i agree they should have kept the original um translation but it was because netflix went for
a more literal translation and apparently that was the more literal one but i don't know it was just
a bit weird but but that is another thing is that like with a lot of you know media that we consume
from american kind of um directors you know like paul thomas hansen and quentin tarantino a lot of
other stuff like you know you think about directors cuts and you think about criteria on copies and
you think about the director's intended way of watching a film you know you had like zach
snider justice league that was like in four by three and like black and white and it's like
four hours yeah and yeah four hours and it's this thing of like sometimes um anime will be censored
in the west due to like the certain sections or certain things that um you know westerners wouldn't
understand in terms of culture it's like how much of a difference does that dub make or that
subtitle change make that kind of deficit from the director's intention of how it should be viewed
but that's that's i think i guess that's just like a conversation for world cinema overall locus
yeah i suppose it depends it's frustrating to think that sometimes the way you watch a film or
the way that it's the way it's presented to you is um kind of dictated by the distributor and how
they decide to translate or do the film so it but i mean a lot of distributors and stuff always have
the director and the kind of story and narrative in mind obviously but sometimes it does get
um frustrating when things are changed so drastically that you lose that source material i
guess i think dubbing and that whole concept of like losing what it might originally have been
is something that a western audience doesn't think about like at all like we're so used to
consuming media in english that you wouldn't even you wouldn't like i said you don't give it a second
thought when it's just being fed to you as is because it's just changed into something that you
are accustomed to and you're not expecting anything different i think the way that we watch tv is
sometimes different to other cultures as well and this is idea of like tv dinner shows where it's
like something you just put on the in the background if somebody wants to watch anime in the
background whilst doing something you're not going to put the subtitle version on because you're
going to have to sit there and read the subtitles but a dubbed version you can hear in the background
but it's it but is that the intended way of watching a show especially with anime shows
that are usually enriched in like story and stuff i think attack on titan do both subtitled and dub
incredibly well so i think some shows do really well and adapt to um i mean it's again it's
that this idea of adaptation there's people who probably you know watched the anime i'm sorry
read the manga before they watched the anime and then they went oh well this isn't as good as the
good as the uh good as the novel i read and it's the same way with dubbing and subbing like it's
like uh the dub doesn't really have the same it's emotional impact as well like some dubs don't have
the same kind of punch there's a part in end of evangelion the film where shinji does this scream
and the dub in my opinion is like awful it sounds so goofy but then this is great the the japanese
version of the scream is like blood curdling it is like really yeah it's amazing and like it just
sends you shivers down your spine the second that matthew said that i thought i needs to hear this
scream and i listened to it and i'm gonna put it in after this because there is definitely a difference
between these two screams so here is the japanese scream
which i agree is pretty blood curdling and here is the english one
which i agree is definitely goofier lastly i wanted to talk to you about something i don't know is
not controversial but just maybe quite a a big point that is probably felt a lot by the anime
community i am someone who doesn't watch a lot of anime i watch a lot of studio ghibli i know
that's anime whatever but but i feel like there is to the non-anime watcher to an anime watcher
there is sort of like uh i feel like a lot of people look down on people who watch anime
i feel like a lot of people look down on people who watch anime and that obviously we have this
term weep just which defines someone who is sort of likes japan likes anime etc but it used to be
a sort of derogatory is not the right word but like a word that you can use to make fun of someone
whereas now i feel like it's a bit it's a bit more chill but like why do you think that there is this
sort of difference why do you think that people who maybe don't who are on the outside looking in
onto the anime culture community why why do you think that they think it's so weird
so i think there's a lot to say about this i think one thing is that um i find really interesting
i actually saw a tech talk about this like literally this morning and it was about how
like again i don't mind talking about this like i'm a furry that's like a like a weird kind of
subculture that people are involved in and somebody said like the the the the stigmatism that
fairies are going through like now in modern media in like content creation stuff like that
is what anime people were going through like five or six years ago which i like wholeheartedly agree
with and i think it goes down to like the mainstream the like the mainstream of it and
and kind of how much how popular it's gotten so like i used to be like massively in anime when
i was like 15 16 like really in anime at that time like it was not cool to like anime but it was not
no like it was not cool to like say that you watch anime and stuff but i would say now like i recently
um got a new job in london and like i've been like getting in my co-workers and stuff and i'm
talking about anime with them and maybe it's just coming like the creative industries and stuff but
it's just i'm like oh have you seen attack on titan and then this like this guy who's like does
not look like he would like watch anime again this is the idea of like somebody watches anime like
looks nerdy and stuff like that or like isn't like all this kind of like pop culture stuff
he was just like oh yeah absolutely attack on titan and i think it's because it's hit like
like western mainstream now to a point where you know it's easily accessible for people like
usually you would have to watch on a dodgy anime website or subscribe to crunchyroll which is
specifically for anime now if you go on netflix there is an entire section just for anime and
they license that anime they fund you've got a gretsgo and which is a netflix anime series
obviously got beast stars from the anime series you got seven deadly sins and it's the same with
um prime i think prime of um so i mean um evangeline have got the rebuild films and again
amazon funded um the final one of those rebuild films and this is idea that yeah and it's this
idea that again streaming services are realizing how um like i guess profitable even though they're
really like the idea of like corporations profiting people as well as it's like it's a profitable
medium because it's got this bit and i think the the accessibility of it has caused a lot of people
to get into it and specifically people who would not normally be in anime and now it's just a
standard and i think one i think gibbly really heavily pioneered that because i think for sure
give gibbly films again similar evangeline bought by netflix and now you can have the entire gibbly
library like at your fingertips on your streaming service when originally you'd be able to watch the
gibbly films if they were on tv or you would buy the dvds and i think again this idea that i was
saying before about studio gibbly being like a kind of gateway into more anime tv shows is that it's
so easily accessible that you can just watch those and realize oh this meet this is like actually not
what i was expecting so i think the reason why this this term weeb is like i don't know it's
more chill now is because there's more anime has become more mainstream yeah it um i think there is
still i think it depends on the shows i think a lot of stuff like my hero academia and titan
they're very westernized with their like content yeah like i was saying before like standard anime
shows that were popular back in 2015 2016 would be like these harem shows where they'd be like
sexualized anime girls and stuff like that and um yeah it's like i wouldn't it's similar kind of
like i don't know i'm trying to find a way to put this it's like anime shows like that you can't
pretend that they don't exist but yeah at that time that was what was popular apart bar like a
few shonen shows that were really hard to get like naruto was massive in 2015 2016 but then you'd
have to watch like 400 episodes of the show and it's just yeah and then you've got all this you
know kind of stuff to watch with that so i think there's a lot more smaller shows which a lot of
people are getting into now like attack on titans few seasons you got a lot of 12 episode shows like
a raise there's not i think still on netflix that's a 12 episode show so you got these bite-sized
shows that people can easily binge watch and i think it's easily binge binge watchable for a
western audience because anime shows have 20 minute episodes when a kind of standard western
um episode is around like an hour or like 50 minutes like you think like breaking bad or
something um but yeah no that that's why i think the term weeb is is changed from something that
was more negative to something that's more uh discussed now is because of how mainstream it's
went which is both down the accessibility and the kind of shows they are but now you've got
shows like my hero academia which is about like superheroes and you think about how big marvel is
and then you think if there's a show entirely circulating around this kid who's got like
superhero powers and is learning to have these powers it's the same kind of aspect as like
spider-man origin films and stuff like that yeah and you got you got to think of like
the western audience think about how much marvel is like worth and how many big budget marvel films
there is now and and how much of a grasp that has on like the like kind of the film industry
it's the same thing with anime where like something like my hero academia which is one of the biggest
anime shows probably in in the west it it has the same kind of feel in the same kind of themes
but it's this you know medium that was only known for these weird shows that you know
are have these kind of like interesting very unique uh styles to them or art that you know
i feel like a lot of stuff in anime is overreacted or like kind of you know exaggerated and i think
that used to be something that people used to make fun of and i think it still is like can still be
looked from a satirical lens but i think now people see it is like if they're watching an action film
they know they're going to get some good action season anime because everything's exaggerated so
it's even more entertaining i think shows like in films they're very much kind of appealing to a
western audience now because you've still got this westernized anime but then the sprinkles of what
makes it the actual genre special and that's what it is so yeah and that's what i appreciate
about your name is that it yeah it does what it is supposed to do very well but it also is sort of
and i think that's really what allows certain animes to be so special is that it every new
popular one is pushing a boundary further than the previous one did and i think that's yeah
ultimately what makes it such an exciting genre to follow and especially this director
Makoto Shinkai he said that like his goal has always been to do something different and do
his own thing and even sort of commenting that he got annoyed when he got compared to Miyazaki
because he was like Miyazaki does one thing i'm i just think that's because i think it's really
um it's really easy to compare oh yeah big time family orientated or like pg like like not like
you know like not heavy kind of r-rated 15 anime films to um Miyazaki yeah it's good you say that
because i think one person i forgot to talk about was um i think Satoshi Kon and he was an amazing
anime director but he did stuff that was more like um like r-rated anime films and it was something i
think um cons cons films were something that came to a western audience where it again it was like
the late 90s similar either where it was like this is something different and you know i'm used to
these like cute cuddly totoro ghibli films where but now i've got these um kind of this film like
perfect blue that deconstructs um yeah like the the kind of the idol industry in japan and becomes
like a psychological horror and you know it's a thriller it's a really good film and it was
something different that was aimed towards like a more um adult audience compared to something like
um Miyazaki so it was really comparable but i do agree like Mamoru Hosoda who makes more like
family-oriented anime films or like kind of like young adult anime films again is something you'd
be like oh you know like Mamoru Hosoda is kind of like it's kind of like Miyazaki kind of stuff i
think it's just i think it's very i don't know be a bit critical but i think it's quite small minded
to compare everything to Ghibli because i think Ghibli is its own thing in itself yeah but it's
so easy to compare it to like yeah to generalize it and it's not good because everyone does their own
different things absolutely thank you so much for talking to me it's been so nice to have you as my
first guest no it's been a pleasure thanks so much for having me on love talking about anime
anytime yeah anytime any any place i didn't know if you wanted to tell the lovely listeners
if you wanted to plug yourself if you wanted to plug anything go for it the stage is yours
okay so if you want to follow me on twitter it's mattyfeelsrough so m-a-t-t-y-f-e-e-l-s-r-u-f-f
tweet about random like stuff like film stuff and furry stuff as well i have my own podcast
where i bring on furry artists and creators and we talk about like why they're a part of this weird
subculture and they also pick a film and album to talk about so there's the film aspect of discussing
films so if you want to check that out thanks it's called for real f-u-r-r-e-a-l if you put like for
real podcast on youtube you'll find it or if you just search for real on spotify or apple you'll
find it as well and yeah and follow my letterboxd which is matthew underscore b-a-t spelled b-a-y-t-e
there we go that's all my plugin you're making your big big letterboxd come back my big letterboxd
come back yeah i haven't done any letterboxd for ages and then i'm gonna it's because i've been
watching tv shows though because i've been watching better call soul in like attack on titan i've been
watching tv shows and you can't log tv shows on letterboxd so i'm not really watching films
you gotta get back into it man i know i know the fans are waiting i'm waiting yeah i'm i'm a
letterboxd micro celebrity with my 100 followers man absolutely okay well thank you very much again
no worries thank you very much
so that's that we made it to the end of the first ever episode of the real thing that's so
exciting that i can say that and to be doing this and thank you to bergen film club again for giving
me this opportunity thank you to matthew for joining us it was so nice to talk to them about
about this film and giving such good insight into something that i really don't know a lot about so
it was definitely really interesting to learn about all of that stuff and thank you to you
if you're still here if you're still listening hi thank you i hope that you will join us again
in the future next episode we are talking about the movie mad god by phil tippett so i'm excited
to talk about some wet blood that's the little insight that i'm going to give for that but
definitely definitely definitely i just i beg you to watch this your name film it's just so beautiful
and yeah if you haven't been convinced by this podcast that the episode then like then fair
enough but just check it out i thought i would end on some some five star reviews of the film from
letterboxd so this is from picanthic oh salami this film took my heart dropped it on the ground
stepped on it stabbed it ripped it apart and threw it in the trash and the next five star review from
starny moon sobbed so hard i threw up if that doesn't sell you on this film i don't know what will
thank you again this has been the real thing and i'll catch you next time goodbye
this has been a bergand film club production our music is by wise john check them out on instagram
at wisc john official our logo is by pier sofia printesen this episode was produced mixed and
engineered by joe lawrence our researchers are inke schildreibern and mameena nazmageet
want to talk to us about films then please send us an email at podion.com
follow the show on instagram and twitter at the real thing pod check us out on letterboxd at bfk
the real thing thank you and goodbye
listen follow leave us a review on spotify apple podcasts amazon podcasts or wherever it is that
you get your podcasts