Maquia, an orphan girl of the nigh-immortal race of the lorphs, adopts an infant boy named Ariel, and devotes her life to the struggle to protect him, nurture him, and understand what it means to be a mother. Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms, an anime film directed by Mari Okada, has all the trappings of an epic fantasy: a world clinging to the remnants of dying magic, kingdoms vying for power, a quest to rescue a captured princess. Yet all this fades into the background, and the story instead focuses on the relationship between Maquia and Ariel.
At just under two hours long, yet with an epic scope that encompasses Ariel’s growth from a child to man, Maquia is a tight, dense film. Each scene is packed to bursting with emotion and portrays a key moment in Maquia and Ariel’s character development. The story gripped me with every step it took on its way to the bittersweet climax— bittersweet, because despite Maquia’s intense love for Ariel, she cannot keep her with him. He may be her son, but he is no longer her child— he is a man, and she must release him to the world. Although the relationship between Maquia and Ariel is intricate, relatable and hits with an immense emotional impact, the film simply doesn’t have enough time to develop its other subplots as well as I would have liked. The arc of Maquia’s childhood friends Laeria and Krim, lovers torn apart by a terrible fate, works well enough but feels a bit rushed. Upon reaching the conclusion of this subplot in my first viewing, I thought “Well, that would have been an emotionally impactful and thematically pertinent climax, except for the fact that I didn’t put together what was happening until after it was all over.” The second time I watched Maquia, I understood Krim and Laeria’s choices in the end much better, but still wished for a few more scenes showing how they got to that point. Themes Maquia’s repeated question, “What does it mean to be a mother?” forms the thematic core of the film. With Maquia and Ariel, we explore every aspect of the relationship between mother and child: the joys they share, how they hurt and misunderstand each other, how the love between them never dies even as their relationship is forced to change. Maquia is a tour de force of a mother’s journey and all the emotions that are part and parcel of it. Through this film, I gained a greater respect and admiration for my own mother. I hope to convince her to watch it someday, although she doesn’t like anime, so it’s a long shot. The film’s intensely beautiful ending illustrates a profound yet sorrowful truth: that all good things must pass away. Maquia and Ariel’s love is not meant to last forever, at least not in the same form. As a Christian, however, I found more hope in the conclusion than I otherwise would have. For the love between mother and son is but an offshoot of a much deeper love springing from an infinite source. Love like Maquia and Ariel’s finds its fulfillment in God, and in God can be transformed into something unimaginably greater, something fit to last through eternity, reflecting glory upon our Creator. Content Maquia includes a tiny bit of veiled sexual content, including implied rape. In one scene, a woman threatens to kill the baby in her womb. We see some bloody images during the climactic battle and its aftermath. Oh, and there’s a single instance of ‘damn’ (or 何てこった if you’re watching it in Japanese). Conclusion: Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms ranks among my favorite films of all time. Highly recommended for anyone who likes anime, mothers, or just plain good storytelling.
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A renowned traveling storyteller must save his long-lost sister from the machinations of an evil lord. Hope Ann’s Dust to Flame is the third novella set in the world of the rift shadows and, in my opinion, the best of her works to date. Protagonist Rafe is fairly simple but in a compelling way: he’s torn between the way of life he’s always known and the desire to protect an innocent little girl. It’s not hard to guess which way he’ll eventually choose, but that doesn’t make his inner journeying any less interesting, nor does it diminish the elation felt when he finally triumphs over evil. There’s not much more I can say without spoilers, but know that Hope Ann has spun a brief but riveting yarn. The only complaint I had was that one thing was referred to in vague terms when it would have made more sense for it to have a specific name. Vagueness can be annoying, as you know after reading the preceding sentence. Also, having read Shadowkeeper and Healer’s Bane, I feel like the rift shadows all have exactly the same personality, but that might be intentional. After reading Dust to Flame, I’m engaged enough in this world (which doesn’t have a name. Hope Ann, if you are reading this, can you please reveal what the name of this world is?) to start developing some fan theories. Hopefully, Hope’s next novella will answer some of the questions I have… and raise new ones. :) Content: Hope Ann’s writing is almost completely clean. Dust to Flame includes in-universe swearing (i.e ‘rifts!’), fighting, and a mention of a character having mistresses, but nothing that should be concerning to anyone older than five. Themes: Dust to Flame doesn’t have any deep or controversial themes. Murdering innocents to increase your own power is bad. Love and self-sacrifice are good. Simple messages, yes, but true ones that I can never be reminded of too much. It probably won’t fall among the ranks of Christian classics as time marches on, but none of this prevents Dust to Flame from being a thoroughly enjoyable, satisfying read. View Dust to Flame on Amazon or Goodreads. Disclaimer: Although I've never met Hope Ann personally, I have a stronger-than-average desire to see her succeed, as we both belong to the same 'young Christian writers' subculture. “What do you call it when you realize you’ve been an asshole your whole life?” “A good start.” -Brent Weeks, The Burning White Never has my opinion of a story changed more drastically than over the course of reading it than Brent Weeks' Lightbringer series. The first book, The Black Prism, wasn’t bad, exactly, but if left me sorely, deeply disappointed. You see, I picked up it up after seeing that the author was speaking at a Realm Makers conference and discovering that he was, in fact, a Christian. Thus was looking forward to reading an epic fantasy written from a Christian worldview. However, The Black Prism proved indistinguishable (aside from a few subtle Biblical references) from some mainstream secular novel. The monotheistic religion is relegated to an interesting worldbuilding feature, people filled with lust are the norm, and moral themes are bland and safe, such as ‘loyalty and compassion toward those who love you are good’.
I’m not sure if this was some sort of trap to bait secular readers, but the Lightbringer series as a whole is a very different story than its first installment would indicate. At first, the cast of characters offers little to emulate. Gavin Guile, the most powerful man in the world, is arrogant and narcissistic, his heroic deeds tainted by the web of murder, deception and sexual sin he’s woven for himself. His (maybe) son Kip isn’t evil, but he’s more an object of pity than admiration. Kip's former crush Aliviana Danavis lusts after Gavin and later joins forces with murderous tyrant. Karris, Gavin’s ex-fiance (whom Gavin still loves but believes he can’t be with for spoilery reasons), is a short-tempered warrior whose main purpose in the first book seems to be objectified by the male characters. Then the rest of the series happens. Weeks take full advantage of his books' immense size to write some of the most intense character arcs I've ever seen. Every major character undergoes drastic changes. Gavin loses everything he wanted and is forced to recognize the depths of his sin. Kip grows from a whiny fat kid into a courageous hero. Karris sees the intense suffering she’s endured redeemed and used for something greater than she’d hoped for. Aliviana spirals into darkness and nearly loses herself entirely. That’s not even mentioning Teia, Tisis, Quentin, Andross, Ironfist, and Cruxer, all of whom have powerful character arcs of their own. By the end of the series, the depravity of the first book has peeled away, and the glory of God shines forth, revealing this story for what it’s been all along: a tale of God’s gracious working in a dark world. Writing Style: Weeks has an annoying habit of not italicizing direct thoughts, so the narrative seems to jump from third to first person and back again. This doesn’t impede enjoyment of his writing, as long as you turn off your inner grammar editor and let the story sweep you away. He also has a Brobdingnagian vocabulary, bigger than you’d expect his characters to have, but again, just don’t overanalyze it and you’ll be fine. Content: There’s a lot to be worried about here. Lightbringer has more sexual content than any other story I’ve read. I skipped several scenes, so I’m not sure how graphic it got exactly, although a couple of them were absolutely necessary for the plot. I actually read Wikipedia summaries of the first three books so I could default to skipping whenever anything involving a man and a woman in a dark room together and not miss anything vital. The fourth book includes a subplot involving a woman who gets married and then finds out that she has some dysfunction of the reproductive system that makes it so she can’t have sex, which ties into the character arcs of both husband and wife in very interesting ways. The sexual content decreases as the series goes on. By books four and five, nearly all the sexual innuendo is in the context of marriage, which makes me happy. One of the awesome things about Lightbringer is that characters I love get married, not at the end of the story, but in the middle— and then I get to see them grow in new ways in their relationship with each other. Battles, killing and dying and are very frequent, although the violence is rarely more gratuitous than necessary. With a few exceptions, the descriptions of killing are along the lines of ‘she stabbed him and he died’ rather than ‘she stabbed him and blood sprayed everywhere and he died’. Vulgarities of all kinds are quite frequent. Characters toss around F-bombs in both casual and high-stress situations. If the idea of reading a sentence like “Get the [expletive] off your [expletive] [expletive], you piece of [expletive]!” fills you with horror, you might not enjoy this series as much as I did. But seriously, if you feel comfortable with it, read Lightbringer all the way to the very end. It’s amazing. Deus ex machina: One common complaint I noticed while reading reviews of The Burning White, the conclusion to the series, is that Weeks used deus ex machina to solve plot problems. To which I reply: it’s not deus ex machina, it’s just deus. Yes, the God-figure, Orloham, takes a more active role in the climax, but He’s a been part of the story from the beginning. The land of Daigo is the most prosperous in all sixteenth-century Japan. Harvests are always plentiful, natural disasters unheard of, and the epidemics that once devastated the domain have vanished. However, this prosperity comes at a cost: in an insignificant village on the edge of a river, a boy lives in darkness. His eyes stare sightlessly, his false ears do nothing to break the silence that has enveloped him since birth, and the prosthetic limbs that allow him to survive can feel neither pain nor pleasure. His name is Hyaakimaru, and he is the son of Daigo Kagemitsu, the lord who sixteen years earlier sacrificed his firstborn in exchange for power over a flourishing land. Most of Hyaakimaru’s body was torn from him at birth, leaving him a blind, deaf, mute invalid whom Daigo immediately ordered drowned in the river. But unbeknownst to Daigo, Hyakkimaru survived with the help of a doctor who took him in and built him a prosthetic body. But once Hyaakimaru discovers his past, he will stop at nothing to regain his true body, and all the land of Daigo will suffer the consequences. This is the premise of Dororo, a 24-episode anime series that remakes a 1969 series of the same name. The titular character is a street urchin who latches onto Hyaakimaru. Her relationship with the mysterious warrior forms the heart of the story. Their personalities are completely different— she chatters nonstop, while he scarcely utters a word even after he regains his voice— but a strong friendship springs up between them. Hyaakimaru’s father-figure Jukai, younger brother Tahomaru, and mother Nui, along with an enigmatic blind wanderer, form a cast of supporting characters that keeps the story interesting— when it focuses on them, at least. Unfortunately, the show lags in the middle. About halfway through, attention is diverted from the main plot in order to follow Dororo and Hyakkimaru as they wander around and fight a bunch of random monsters. However, this problem can be alleviated by simply skipping episodes 13-15. Read the summaries on Wikipedia for relevant plot details. I also recommend skipping episode 19, in which a mischievous imp mind-controls Hyakkimaru so that he agrees to marry a girl he just met. It’s quite stupid and has very little to do with the other episodes. Although the show is set in Japan during the Warring States period, it’s never clear why one doctor has the knowledge to build fully functional prosthetic limbs, but if you can suspend disbelief about this, Dororo proves to be a thoroughly enjoyable show. One of its greatest strengths is in its symbolism. Certain objects take on great meaning due to the context in which they appeared earlier in the show, so that by the climax, a character repairing a headless statue shows us more than could be explained in a thousand words. Content Dororo contains more violence than necessary. In nearly every episode, Hyaakimaru stabs something, and blood sprays across the screen. There are also a few particularly disturbing scenes, such as when severed fingers are briefly displayed at the beginning of episode 3. One character is a prostitute, although this is handled in the least lewd way possible. She’s a very compelling character; a conversation between her and Dororo in episode 6 is one of the most moving and heartbreaking scenes I’ve ever watched. There are a few instances of ‘damn’ and ‘hell’ in the subtitles. Themes In Dororo, undoing injustice proves to be much more complicated than killing the bad guy. As Hyaakimaru continues his quest to regain his body, he is faced not with increasingly powerful monsters, but with a moral dilemma: his body is rightfully his, but recovering it will break his father’s pact with the demons, ending the land’s prosperity. Jukai warns him that if he continues his single-minded quest, he will regain a body stained with human blood— and may perhaps not even be human at all. The risk is clear: Hyaakimaru may get his body, but at the cost of his soul. Thus, undoing the evil done by Daigo’s pact proves to be much more difficult than it was for Daigo to sacrifice his son in the first place. In the end, self-sacrifice and forgiveness win the day, although the characters’ earlier actions still have painful consequences. If that last sentence sounds vague, that’s because I’m trying to avoid spoilers. There are a few mentions of Buddha, but the religion of ancient Japan plays a very small role in the story. More attention is given to the idea that taking the lives of others could lead to losing one’s own humanity. As for the demons, they are not demons in the biblical sense, but demons from Japan’s mythology. They come in many different forms, most of them looking like giant mutated animals, but are all similar in that they want to eat humans. Hyakkimaru is warned that his quest for his body could lead to him becoming a demon, although it is unclear whether this means he would literally transform into a monstrous beast, or that his heart would become so hardened that he could never recover. Conclusion Although Dororo suffers from violence and a saggy middle, the story pulls together for a thrilling and satisfying climax. Dororo is an immediately lovable character, and the change she and other characters work in Hyaakimaru is both subtle and profound. Overall, the show is worth watching. If you want to avoid some of the extraneous subplots and get to that climax quickly, I recommend skipping episodes 4, 7, 13-15, and 19-20. Behold: Evidence that a huge budget is not necessary to tell a compelling story in the film medium. You probably have never heard of the film Wreckage, written, produced and directed by Damon Evans in conjunction with Northwest Christian School. That’s sad. I will now fix that problem.
Wreckage, which you can watch for free at cabinfeverfilms.org, purports to be a story of a community in a dystopian world upset by the arrival of a mysterious being whose kind vanished seven or eight years ago. What exactly is this being? A grown man, over twice the age of the oldest member of the community. Rachel, the leader of this community of children who apparently rose from the ashes after abandonment by their parents, face a difficult decision, one made personal by the fact that the newcomer is, in fact, her father. The film raises many interesting questions about its setting - where did all the adults go? Why did a giant crater appear in the middle of the desert? How exactly does the government of this post-apocalyptic society function? And why does one of Rachel’s trusted advisors have the ability to teleport? However, by the end of the film, the plot has twisted and these questions are revealed to be entirely irrelevant. I don’t see a way to discuss the plot of the film without spoiling one of the major plot twists (which I hated at first), but suffice to say that this is not the dystopian story it introduces itself as. I originally had a very strong negative reaction to the film because of this, as I felt the rug pulled out from under me as I realized all the questions I had about the setting weren’t going to be answered. But looking back, I appreciate the film for its strong (and unique) thematic premise. While not perfect, Wreckage is thoroughly worth watching. Themes: The thematic heart of Wreckage consists in the tension of the two biblical precepts, exemplified in two verses: 1 Corinthians 13:7 and Proverbs 4:23. At first, the film seems to present the first verse as a simple, straightforward answer to Rachel’s dilemma. However, Wreckage stands out among Christian films for touching on a rarely addressed question: How do you forgive someone who hasn’t repented? Rachel’s final decision may be controversial. But her situation is a realistic one, and it deserves to be discussed. Content: There’s literally nothing to be worried about here. Go watch the film. Conclusion: Why are you still reading this? Go watch Wreckage. Get some of your friends and family to watch it to, if you can. Just keep in mind that this film is not about survival in a post-apocalyptic landscape. It’s about the relationship between Rachel and her father. If all the other characters come across as one-dimensional, that’s ok. They’re supposed to, for reasons I won’t spoil here. |
Progress on Doombear, Rough draft:10%
Progress on The Lore of Yore, third draft:
100%
"In truth, by leaving, I was seeking only one thing. A journey."
-Oathbringer, pg 981 Types of blog posts:
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