As it turned out, Okuribito is a deeply human story, of fear and misunderstanding, comprehension and reconciliation. My japanese wasn’t and it still isn’t so good as to allow me to understand everything people say, but nonetheless it wasn’t impossibly hard so when the movie ended and our teacher asked “how was it?” I immediately said “素晴らしい” , wonderful. That was partly due to the simple fact that I understood it (or better, grasped it) and partly due to the nature of the film itself.
The movie is at times a drama, without becoming a melodrama, and at times a commedy, with japanese humor which, surprisingly, isn’t that hard to understand. It’s the story of a man, Daigo, which loses his job when his orchestra disbands, and then moves back to his home town with his wife, Mika. There, he starts to work in a funeral home as a ceremonial “encoffinator”, but he is unable to tell his wife the truth, fearing her reactions.

The cast is wonderfully acting, from the protagonist portrayed by Masahiro Motoki and his mentor (Tsutomu Yamazaki),
to his wife (Ryoko Hirosue, whom you may recall for Wasabi).

Now this wonderful movie has finally arrived in Italy, and starting today it will be showing in 24 cinemas across the country; in my hometown (Reggio Emilia) will be shown at the Rosebud theater. Unfortunately it’s still a long way before asian movies can be seen normally alongside hollywood flicks, but this is just one more reason to go see Departures (that’s the title in Italy too).

As I saw written on mymovies.it when I checked if Departures was being shown in my hometown: recommended? absolutely yes!

Naturally, a movie’s success is not only in money it makes, and Avatar has its big share of critics, concerning mainly the script which to many is way too similar to movies like Pocahontas, Dance with Wolves, The Last Samurai, The New World, FernGully or the italian Aida degli Alberi. The more I think about it, the more it seems to me that people just name the first movie they saw whose story is close to Avatar’s. Don’t get me wrong, personally I saw Dance with Wolves and The Last Samurai and I gotta agree, they both are similar to Cameron’s last work, but still, they are also different.
Every filmmaker is by definition someone who loves movies, and every one of them, if asked, will tell stories about how he got into the idea of becoming what he is by seeing some old movie he still loves. Cameron himself was so amazed after seeing Star Wars in 1977 that he decided to enter the film industry.

A story may be simple, or may be inspired by billion others, but if you ask me, what matters most is if the story works. I’ve seen lots of movies whose story is bad simply because it makes you think the writer had to finish it in a hurry or was running short of ideas, but damn, Cameron said he’s been working on the film since 1995 and that’s a long time to fix a script.
I personally thought, after seeing the movie the first time, that it also has space to show you how the relation between Jake, Norm and Dr. Grace changes, like the scene where we see Norm explaining to Sully what’s the real meaning of the Na’vi phrase “I see you” and Jake’s voice tells us that Norm is getting friendlier but probably still sees him as a moron.

So the idea behind the movie is simple, not the story. After all, when Dance with Wolves came out, nobody said the story was bad. Maybe just because it was somewhat new. The worst thing that comes to my mind about the story is that it’s really predictable, but I still didn’t mind cause that’s not exactly something that happens rarely in movies.
One thing that I really don’t like is people going to see a movie with opinions already formed about them, this makes it pointless to see the movie if you ask me. It ruins the whole experience, cause if you go in thinking that it’s just a blockbuster, you’ll probably end up trying to catch the defects of the movie, not enjoying it for what it is.

I even read a guy saying that the special effects are nothing special, really. That is the perfect example of pointless faultfinding.

In anything, Avatar is a spectacular and compelling visual experience. There are times when Pandora feels so real you’d like to explore its forests for a moment. At first, when the avatars are introduced to you, they feel a bit unreal, mostly like every computer created life-form or character feels in many other movies, but then, after a while, you tend to forget that they are not real, cause they sure look incredibly real and their facial expressions are the best I’ve seen so far.
There are a few moments in which I wasn’t satisfied about them, like when Sully tries to calm Neytiri and to explain her that she changed his view of the Na’vi people. Neytiri’s reaction felt a bit exxagerated to me, so I guess there is still some work before computers can create a perfect virtual character.

Avatar is a fantastic voyage in a an all new world (shameless ripoff from Avatar’s movie posters), a visual experience indeed, 3D or not, that you may like or not, but for me when a movie makes you dream and wonder, it succeeded in what movies are made for. Pandora and the Na’vi can make you wonder, you just have to stop thinking and complaining about Dance with Wolves and Pocahontas, I guess.

P.S. – After Avatar’s enormous success, Cameron said he’s gonna make a sequel (or 2), but first he should proceed with Battle Angel which has been for some time his top priority and was switched with Avatar later on. Let’s just hope it’s gonna be a good movie, cause I loved the manga.

You can read about on the official website: WordPress for Android or in case you’re too lazy to go there, you can watch the following video.

At the moment there’s already been an update, so you’ll get 1.0.1 version which should fix some minor bugs.

And if you are reading this, means that the other applet works as well. This one is called wpToGo and it’s definitely better, lets you add some basic html tags and also add tags to your posts.

I’m obviously talking about android applications that help you update your Wordpress blog. There are probably more, but so far I checked only these two.

Anyway, before buying the phone I also made a few researches to check if it was possible to write in japanese on it, and if there were any dictionaries on the market. Months ago I found this great article on J. Maurice’s blog: Japanese IME (iWnnIME) on Android – T9 / qwerty but it requires root access and this means you’ll have to find a way to get root access on your smartphone and I didn’t wanna do that… so now that I have the phone, I browsed the market to check for other possible ways to type in japanese.
I found two noteworthy: the first option was Kaede IME which is good, but the onscreen keyboard really sucks in my opinion, being too big to allow for correct typing. Basically you have a key for every hiragana sign and that’s definitely not good, since they are 46, making each button very small (not to mention it’s also hard to find the correct symbol between all the others fast, unless you remember where each symbol is supposed to be).

The second option, the one I’m currently using, is OpenWnn plus. What I really love about OpenWnn plus is the onscreen keyboard, which works almost exactly like the keyboard of the SoftBank cellphone I had when I was in Japan last time. Basically you have 10 buttons from which you can type every one of the 46 symbols… for example you’ll have the あ symbol and by pressing it a few times you can select either あ or え, い, お and う. You also have a couple more keys for the ten-ten or maru (濁点 dakuten and 半濁点 handakuten), plus one for the symbols (記号 kigou) which becomes the key for ASCII codes (英数 eisuu) or kana while you type. I’m really loving OpenWnn, but as I mentioned, maybe it’s just because I’m used to typing on a japanese cellphone and it may not come so easy to others, who may prefer the bigger Kaede IME type of keyboard.

Another applet you can’t miss if you’re studying japanese of if you (like me) always like to have a dictionary at hand and you’re fed of dragging your 電子辞書 (denshi jisyou, electronic dictionary) around, is Aedict. Again, there are some more dictionaries, but this one if by far the slimmest and easiest I’ve found, and it also comes with Kanjipad, an applet-in-the-applet which allows you to draw a kanji and search for it in the dictionary (which it’ll prompt you to download at first use). Neat!
There’s also the always handy radical lookup and a hiragana/katakana table which, again, may come in handy to new students of this complicated-enough language.

P.S. – Aedict uses the edict (yeah well, the name would be Android EDICT, so…) project’s dictionary created by Jim Breen, so you can bet your money it’s a good one (and you don’t have to, it’s free).

P.S. 2 – Since I’m currently unable to take screenshots from my own Android, many thanks to AndroLib.com, where I could find the screenshot you see in this article.

Just wanted to wish a merry Christmas to everyone!

In Japan that is called 招き猫 (maneki neko) and it litterally means beckoning cat, or welcoming cat. In the present days it is just one more clearly recognizable symbol of the japanese culture and traditions maybe, but its origin goes back in time. Supposedly it originated in the late Edo period (1603-1867) but the first documented evidence is dated 1870; by the beginning of the 20th century, the maneki neko was already popular.

With his left paw raised, the cat beckons people, attracting them, and that is why shops in the 20th century had quite often a maneki neko near the entrance, so to lure clients inside. The idea of the cat as a lucky charm translated in this case in that of a cat bringing visitors and then wealth with them.
Nowadays however, they are more of a cultural icon than a tradition and certainly modern shops don’t keep them by the entrance. If you go to Tokyo’s Shitamachi Museum near the south-eastern edge of Ueno Park, you can find a maneki neko in the replica of a Edo period shop, and if you ask, the old lady at he museum will tell you the story of those little cat statues. That was actually my first contact with the concept of maneki neko, back in 2004 when I first went to Tokyo.

Since that day the image of this cat struck me, partly cause I always had a crush for cats and partly cause I found the idea fascinating and so traditionally and intrinsically japanese. My next move was to buy some (they are sold in a billion souvenir shops around Japan) for myself and for my friends, and when I discovered they also were popular on cellphone straps I couldn’t avoid buying some, could I?

This brings me to the other thing I wanna explain about the maneki neko: the differences in color between them and their meaning, plus the difference in meaning between the raised paw(s) of the cats.

Calico cat: this is the most popular maneki neko, the one with black and orange/brown patches. It is considered to be the luckyest cat of all.
White cat: second most popular cat, this symbolizes purity and positive things to come.
Black cat: a ward against evil, sending away the malevolent spirits.
Golden cat: brings wealth and prosperity.
Pink or red cat: for love and romance, in a relationship or marriage. Or to attract it!
Green cat: for health and studies, popular between students.

Right paw raised: attracting money and good fortune.
Left paw raised: beckoning people, attracting customers.
Both paws raised: protection for home or businness.

In recent years many more types and poses have become popular, for example the sleeping cat whishing you good sleep, or the maneki neko has been used in different environments like a traditional or familiar icon, for example on sweets.
There are anyway many more layers or informations about these small little fellas (well, not all of them, you can easily find some huge maneki neko as well), for example what is that coin they hold in their hads? Why do some of them have a red collar with a bell?

Well, seems like everything, even if it’s just a cheep maneki neko souvenir, has some hidden meaning in it. Maybe I’ll explain some more next time, or maybe I’ll just point you to and interesting article about them on the A-to-Z Photo Dictionary of Japanese Buddism. Doesn’t explain everything, but it adds some more interesting facts or suppositions anyway.

To whoever will stumble upon these pages: be welcome and be free to comment if you’d like, politeness required, of course.