Fall 2010 Programing Schedule

Meeting times and places are not yet determined

Be sure to visit our facebook group to see our weekly movies.

Here’s the line up for the semester:

BakemonogatariBakemonogatari Bakemonogatari centers on Koyomi Araragi, a third year high school student who is almost human again after briefly becoming a vampire. One day, a classmate named Hitagi Senjōgahara, who infamously never talks to anyone, falls down the stairs into Koyomi’s arms. He discovers that Hitagi weighs next to nothing, in defiance of physics. Despite being threatened by her to keep away, Koyomi offers his help, and introduces her to Meme Oshino, a strange middle-aged man living in an abandoned building, who cured him of being a vampire.

The series tends to introduce only one new heroine per chapter, each involved with a different “apparition”. Most of them have an item which symbolises their spectres, such as Hitagi’s stapler – the claw of a crab, Mayoi’s back pack – the shell of a snail, Suruga’s leggings – SARUMATA (猿股?, the Japanese traditional underclothing. ‘SARU’ means monkey), and Nadeko’s big hat and baggy jacket – the head and skin of a snake. The events of the previous chapters play an important role in the subsequent ones. The series primarily focuses on conversations between characters; it contains a fair number of parodies of other series, as well as Nisio Isin’s trademark word play and metahumor.

Jin The story follows a brain surgeon named, Minakata Jin, who has spent the last two years in anguish, as his fiancee lies in a vegetative state after an operation he performed. One day, he faints at the hospital and awakens to find himself transported back in time to the Edo period. He is soon attacked by a samurai, but he escapes with the help of a man named Kyotaro. Kyotaro suffers a serious injury to the head while trying to protect him, but Jin manages to save his life despite a lack of proper medical equipment. Because of that, Kyotaro’s sister Saki begins taking an interest in Jin and becomes his assistant. Meanwhile, Jin is determined to find a way back to the present.

Nyan Koi Junpei Kōsaka is a second-year high school student who despises cats and has an allergy to them. It just so happens that his high school crush is Kaede Mizuno, a girl who adores cats. One day, while walking home from school, Junpei kicks an empty can and unfortunately beans the local neko-jizō-sama (guardian deity of cats). He finds he can now understand what cats are saying, including his family’s own ill-tempered cat, Nyamusasu. However, if he does not grant 100 wishes from cats, he will turn into cat himself.

November 17th – The Girl Who Leapt Through Time

The_Girl_Who_Leapt_Through_Time_poster

Bate 1022, 5:15 PM

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (時をかける少女, Toki o Kakeru Shōjo?) is a 2006 Japanese animated science fiction film. The film focuses on a high school girl who inadvertently gains the power to travel through time and begins using it frivolously to fix problems. It was produced by the animation studio Madhouse and directed by Mamoru Hosoda. It is inspired by, and is a pseudo-sequel to, the 1976 novel Toki o Kakeru Shōjo by Yasutaka Tsutsui.

Critical response to The Girl Who Leapt Through Time was very positive, and it won numerous awards, including the Japan Academy Prize for Animation of the Year.

If I get elected they will be terrified… I myself will be terrified.

From Wikipedia – Koichi Toyama (外山恒一, Toyama Kōichi?, , born July 26, 1970) is a Japanese street musician, an “anarchist-fascist” political activist who was a candidate for the governor of Tokyo in 2007. He was born in Kagoshima Prefecture, and lives in Fukuoka. He gained notoriety with his fervent election speech, which was posted on the American based website YouTube. Out of fourteen candidates in the election, Toyama placed eighth with 15,059 votes (0.27 percent of total votes cast).

Described by the announcer as an “Extreme Left Anti-Establishment” figure, Koichi began his controversial statement by denouncing Japan as a “horrible nation” and rejecting any possibility for reforms. Declaring most of the voters to be his “enemies”, Koichi calls upon a minority to rise up. He closes his speech by calling for the overthrow of the Japanese Government and making an obscene gesture toward the camera.

Another Koichi video, from 2008, saw him giving a monologue in which he claims as the United States has a global hegemony, it is an injustice that despite being a citizen of what he calls one of America’s “51st states” (“America”, he claims “literally encompasses the entire world”), he is not eligible to vote, let alone stand as a candidate, in the election.

Spetember 8th – Ping Pong (2002)

Ping PongA comedy about a sport that most people don’t take very seriously

Event canceled, Mendenhall canceled our room.

Ping Pong (ピンポン, Pin Pon?) is a 2002 sports film directed by the Japanese filmmaker Fumihiko Sori. It is based on Taiyō Matsumoto’s manga of the same name and is about the friendship between two high school table tennis players.

The film concentrates on these two friends, their two mentors, and three players who they encounter at high school table tennis tournaments. It explores the different motivations and philosophies that they have towards table tennis and tries to portray the excitement and subtlety of the sport.

Ping Pong was nominated for eight Japanese Academy Awards in 2003; Shidō Nakamura won the ‘Newcomer of the Year’ prize for his performance as Dragon.

The cast includes Yosuke Kubozuka (Peco), Arata (Smile), Sam Lee (China), Shidō Nakamura (Dragon), Kōji Ōkura (Akuma), Naoto Takenaka (Butterfly Joe, the high school coach) and Mari Natsuki (Obaba, Peco’s mentor).