Angelic Layer & My Neighbour Totoro

I recently picked up this the discounted 7 DVD set by MVM of the CLAMP anime Angelic Layer

Angelic Layer is about a small town girl called Misaki Suzuhara that travels to Tokyo to live with her Aunt. However on arrival the 12 year old Misaki discovers a new game, which the player controls high tech dolls with their minds to battle each other. She quickly makes friends with other kids that are also enjoy playing Angelic Layer.

Angelic layer is based on the Manga series made by CLAMP (the all girl makers of Chobits) and the Animation is from BONES the same studio that animated Rah-Xephon.

The story is great, I was really excited about when it was first introduced in the Chobits. The DVDs contains 4 episodes each and as always ADV has shoved some extras in also.

Hikaru, Misaki's doll from the CLAMP anime Angelic Layer.
Note the very determined to win face.

I recently bought this DVD in the acclaimed Studio Ghilbi Collection.

This full length anime is conceived as a family film devoid of conflict and suffused with the carefree pleasures of the summertime, My Neighbour Totoro sees Hayao Miyazaki create a parable of friendship and imagination populated with unforgettable characters.

The storyline revolves around Satsuki and her little sister Mei (voiced in English by Dakota Fanning and Elle Fanning) get away from it all while their mother recovers from an illness in an idyllic rural retreat. Far from the bustle of the city, they discover a mysterious place of spirits and magic, and the friendship of the Totoro woodland creatures.

Christmas

Happy Boxing day people.
As is normal for someone like me I still get children's presents and Mommy bought me this years Beano annual

Nausicaa-Of The Valley Of The Wind

This anime was the second animated feature by director Hayao Miyazaki and for it he chose to adapt his own best selling manga whose huge success in Japan help launch Studio Ghibi and this anime bears all the hallmarks that its output over the years  features in its successes, namely magical kingdoms,great characters and stunning animation.
The story is routed in the past, a thousand years ago after a big war where a seaside kingdom known as the Valley of the Wind is one of the few areas that remain populated.
The people of the Valley, lead by the courageous Princess Nasusicaa are engaged in a constant battle with the Ohmu, a most powerful group of insects who are guarding a poisonous jungle that is spreading across the Earth.
In the anime, we see Princess Nausicaa  and her brave companions working with the people of the Valley, striving to restore the bond between humanity and the earth.
One of the most important messages in it I feel is that as people we need to work alongside nature  for our own well-being.

Edited 2017 for blu ray pix.

Childhood Fiction

Part of this whole adult still  a child side of me involves reading  often things about or even from  my childhood.

The What Katy Did trilogy  by Susan Coolridge  I originally read but never owned as a child having more of Enid Blyton's novels but a good few years back I bought the 1989 World Distributors editions together with Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.
I hope to read more.

Amanda's New School

This is a paperback I've had from my schooldays that I've always had a soft spot for although it is an update of the 1932 original Nesta's New School story.

The outline of the story is Amanda's wealthy adoptive mother dies, and she goes to live with her birth mother and her sister Alice. After a privileged childhood, she has to adjust to a middle class school as well as a new family.
This sort of theme is one I've always adored being less about midnight escapes and epic escapes than many school stories for girls and rather more on the character of the girls such as Amanda being of more practical import for girls such as I with things we have to overcome and adapting to changed circumstances.

Thanks

Sometimes you heave to go backwards to go forward in being the best you you can wither or not it's really more like last week and being retaught  your behaviour and standards or it's really about finding who you really are after years of people pleasing.

People tried to push me down a level of presenting that had others assume I was a fully mature young lady when in reality my head was hardly just in its teens and my interests while sometimes crossing over were coming more from that of a young child- a girl who still badly needed guidance and the space to play.

I had less need for lifestyle magazines never mind political publications and the like and really rather more for comics with short stories, jokes and playthings like dollies to be encouraged to get involved when we had visits leaving the real grown ups to have their own conversations.

I'd like to this opportunity to thank everyone at GT,G.I,  IK,DDlg and FA for your concern following recent events and how they have left me feeling, be they comments in chat, on posts or face to face.

I was  pleasantly surprised to read one blog entry that addressed that topic of balancing your little and big lives an individual was facing that had a direct quote from  me upon my return after a few days so thanks Jake for that.

I'm slowly de-stressing and beginning to think more around how get to where I feel most comfortable and resolving some longstanding issues that compound if not of themselves create them.
Thanks again,
Jo
x

Drifting back in time an some

Autumn has ended so thoughts go very much towards the Big Event of Winter, Christmas and the countdown for it in a couple of weeks time having gotten over all the Bonfire night stuff earlier on this month.

Perhaps it's not so surprising your mind drifts away from what it should of been concentrating on perhaps getting cocky and lippy into the bargain with it 

It's hardly surprising given my own gender past there's a big chunk of me that both feels being in a more junior role treated as a child of my era was dressed in pinafore dresses and even being in some sort of school would suit me.

A hand spanking followed by the cane for "childhood offences" while in that role leaving me tearful would over time help better train me.

Maybe it'll all happen one day.