On Sunday, Tycho, Tor, Kai and myself braved the horrors of public transport to go into town to see the new Miyazaki, Ponyo (on the cliffs´by the sea). And well worth the trip it was too! It struck me that it's the great attention to the realistic detail of everyday life at a nursery and a service home for the elderly in the first part of the film, that makes it easier to accept it when everything gets weird and wonderful later on.
One thing that did surprise me though was that even the great Miyazaki is not immune to the use of a seriously wacky haircut. The magician, Ponyo's dad,had a real cracker.
Anyone who watches any quantity of anime knows that they are full of the most extraordinary of coiffeurs. It's no secret that the kind of TV progammes that Kai watches, Pokemon, Dragonball, Yu-Gi-Oh, Bakugan etc are made with the merchandising possibilities for toys and gaming cards constantly in mind. I can't help wondering whether there isn't a similar deal with the producers of shampoos, hair products and wigs. I can imagine the planning meetings for these shows: hours are spent thinking up the most outlandish hairstyles under the sun and then at the eleventh hour some bright spark suggests that it might also be a good idea if there was a plot!
If I was a serious Nipponophile rather than a mere dilettante, I'm sure I could provide some profound cultural reason to explain the delight of Japanese cartoonists in serious hairstyles.
All will perhaps become clearer with the fullness of time?
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