Ah, Valentine’s Day…that uneasy mix of love and martyrdom. The origins of the day are pretty much gone by now, although we tend to focus on the romance.
First, a word or two about romance cliches. If you’ve seen a modern romantic comedy, you’ve seen a few common traits. For women: the man will come in and, after some wacky misunderstanding, finally fall in love with the fun-loving, smart, sexy, and unlucky-in-love woman. For men: A wild (or down-to-earth; the plot varies) girl will arrive and help you get out of your soul-sucking job or just show up an be pretty and available after you broke up with your shrew-of-a-girlfriend. All of these cliches tend to infiltrate our thinking about love: on the screen the man is tailor-made for the woman and vice versa.
For this latest, Valentine’s Day addition to my Rough Intro to Anime series, I’ve put together some examples of films that have a heavy romantic side. Much of the material is aimed at males, so you can expect things to be a little different than the usual American romantic comedy. Also, some of them suffer from the same glaring cliches as American romantic movies, and you’ll probably pick up on them fairly quickly, but are they any worse than the Manic Pixie Dream Girl or The Reformed Bad Guy? Are any of the lines as groan-worthy as “You complete me!” or “love means never having to say you’re sorry?” You be the judge.
1) Whispers of the Heart
The movie revolves around a middle-school student named Shizuku, a smart girl who is pushing herself to write a few songs and read 20 books over the summer. Her current project is to translate John Denver’s “County Roads” for her graduation class — although she’s rewording it to “Concrete Roads” to reflect the urban setting of the movie. She’s also noticing that all of her books have been checked out by boy named Amasawa, although their first meeting is less than enjoyable. When she follows a cat to an antique shop, she falls in love with the store and strikes up a friendship with the elderly shopkeeper and his prized possession: a beautiful statue of a cat he calls “The Baron.”
The boy who has been checking out the same books turns out to be the shopkeeper’s grandson, and is practicing to become a violinist. He’s also working on becoming a violin maker, something he knows will take years of practice to perfect. As the two grow closer, she is determined to become better at her own skills, and sets out to create a story about The Baron while Amasawa leaves for an apprenticeship.
This is a Studio Ghibli movie; they’re the same people who made the Oscar-winning Spirited Away and many other great movies. Like many of their films, this one features a strong female protagonist who is given a challenge she must overcome. The twist is that this is set in a very real-world setting, with a fair amount of the movie taking place in Shizuku’s cramped family apartment. If other Ghibli movies take place in rural areas filled with green grass and rolling hills, this one takes its time showing off the hidden gems of a busy city. Throughout all of this we get to watch Amasawa and Shizuku get to know each other, and it’s a sweet time of seeing two kids who only have a vague idea of what they want to do when they grow up. While some are taken aback in the last few seconds of story (I won’t spoil it, but it probably wouldn’t cause a shock in its native country), the movie overall is a great story.
2) Ah My Goddess
I hesitated putting this on here for reasons that may be obvious soon, but since the show is ultimately about a couple clearly in love I’ll include it.
Keiichi is a college student and a member of an extra-curricular club that fixes up motorcycles and scooters. He does okay in class and is a whiz at repairs, but has had a terrible string of luck recently — including having no luck at all in finding a girlfriend. A few potentials shoot him down because he’s too short and others because he’s going into blue-collar work. One day he calls for some take-out food and accidentally calls forth a beautiful goddess named Belldandy. She says she can grant him one wish to make up for his unlucky life. Thinking this is all a joke his friends set up, he makes his wish that she would stay with him forever. Wish granted.
Belldandy and Keiichi get kicked out of the dorms and are forced to take up residence in an abandoned shrine as he figures out how to live with someone who is infinitely more powerful than him, but also incredibly kind and caring. She is quite serious about her intent to stay with him, and Keiichi doesn’t seem to take it for granted for a second. Much of the series is spent with the two learning about how each other operates and communicates, although silly adventures pop up now and then when Belldandy’s sisters move in and enemies (both human and supernatural) make an attempt to split them up.
As you might expect, Belldandy is something of a controversial character. For a fictional person, it seems like a lot of ink has been spilled over what she represents and how she responds — some reviewers think she sets back women’s rights by a few decades. For example, she’s conscripted into this life and accepts it cheerfully. She does the cooking, much of the cleaning, makes the tea, does laundry, and acts motherly around her little sister — all with a smile. She has a beautiful voice and sees the best in everyone around her. Her life before she met Keiichi is mentioned, but he really does seem to be the center for her life for now.
This alone would make her little more than the title character in “I Dream of Jeannie.” However, it’s all tempered by the fact that Keiichi is genuinely one of the kindest males around. He’s no womanizer, and he presents himself in a pretty selfless manner. He’s clearly the smartest person in his club, and his initial concern about Belldandy is finding a part-time job so they can afford to eat. He’s often wondering how he can make her life on earth better. Unlike the romance stories that end after the wedding or when they first kiss, this one focuses more on two people who are wholly committed to each other.
3) Ranma 1/2
This is a little less straightforward in its romance, but its still the focus of the story. Call it a love story that’s been beaten to within an inch of its life.
Ranma Saotome has been training in martial arts with his father Genma for the greater part of ten years. Both of them are now quite good, and are off to Genma’s longtime friend where Ranma is to become engaged to one of his three daughters. Ranma doesn’t like the idea, but they have another problem: Genma accidentally let them wander into a land of cursed springs, cursing those who fall in to become something else when hit with cold water (although hot water switches them back). Genma arrives at Soun Tendo’s as a gigantic panda bear. Ranma shows up as a girl.
This is only a minor problem for Soun’s family, and the eldest daughters quickly move to set up Ranma with their youngest sister, Akane — who is furious at her family. Initially she’s everything Belldandy is not: a tomboy who is into martial arts and whose cooking causes suffering. She’s short-tempered, prone to violence, bratty, and has no desire to date boys (hence why they chose her for Ranma, since he’s only half a man). The two don’t hit it off well, and he’s taken aback their first day of school when she proceeds to beat up every guy in her class. Then again he’s not exactly the nicest guy around either, and wastes little time in reminding Akane of how “uncute” he finds her and claiming that he makes a better woman than she does. The two bicker, fight, yell, taunt, and of course everyone but them can see they’re starting to really care for each other. In nearly every episode, the two of them find a way to say how they feel by some selfless act or slip of the tongue. It’s a well-worn cliche, but the show handles it pretty well.
The show is primarily a mixture of silliness and martial arts, and it loves to revel in the absurd premise. The romantic aspects aren’t sparse, but are just one of reasons that it’s been popular in the U.S. and its homeland for over 20 years.
4) Voices of a Distant Star
I’ve talked about this one before in brief, but I promise that I’m saving the best for last on this list. It’s only a 30-minute short film, and there’s a chance it’ll be streaming for free again late this month, so take the chance if you get it.
A young couple is facing separation when the girl (named Mikako) is drafted to fight in a galactic war against an alien race. The two of them vow to stay in contact, and at first this is easy to do through their phones. Then as the war keeps moving further from earth, messages take longer and become more infrequent. What became months will suddenly take years as Mikako is forced to move faster than the speed of light to reach keep more aliens from nearing Earth. Her final message will take nearly 9 years to reach her boyfriend. Meanwhile he is losing hope of hearing from her, and realizes that the next message he receives will be when he’s an adult and she’s still a teenager.
This short film was created on a lone Mac, yet somehow it still looks beautiful. It’s not quite as flashy as other animation, but it makes up for a somewhat minimalistic view with the story and aesthetic. As an added bonus, the focus of the story should keep geeks going: if you move faster than light and then return, how much of an age discrepancy will there be between the two of them? Will they beat their own messages homes? If you feel like watching something tonight with a significant other, you can let her cry towards the ending while you ponder all of these questions. Just don’t tell her.
