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*This interview was recorded before the SAG-AFTRA strike*
BGN interviews actors Dermot Mulroney and Charlayne Woodard to discuss the latest episode of the series Secret Invasion and the intense days of filming on set.
Nick Fury learns of a secret invasion of Earth by a faction of shapeshifting Skrulls; Fury joins his allies, and together they race against time to thwart an imminent Skrull invasion and save humanity.
Interviewer: Jeandra LeBeauf
Video Editor: Jamie Broadnax
Secret Invasion is currently streaming on Disney+
Here’s the next entry in ‘Hidden Gem Anime Series to Enjoy’ for you all to enjoy. As we’re officially in summer, let me introduce you to Tengoku Daimakyou. I picked up the first few volumes of the manga and learned that there was an anime adaptation already streaming, and I just felt that there wasn’t enough buzz about it. The more I watched the more I knew that outside of some of my faves this Spring Anime Season that this was a stunner that I had to keep watching. It had been described to me as “The Last of Us meets The Promised Neverland,” so I knew I had to tell all of my anime watching friends.
If you love your dystopian anime with a TV-MA (Mature Audience only) programming rating, this may be your jam. On a note of transparency and as I think trigger warnings are great tools, please take care as I link here for a later episode that might just make some viewers drop the show altogether. Spoilers aren’t great, but mental health takes precedence here in the house of BNP. Take care yourselves, friends.
What is it About:
In short, the world has gone to crap. Some fifteen years ago The Great Disaster befell Japan. Now in the year 2024, grotesque human-eating monsters lurk amongst the ruins of Japan, while the remaining population is scattered about eking out a living with the surviving technologies. The anime centers upon two groups of young adults: Kiruko and Maru who are traveling through Japan while Tokio and her classmates that she’s grown up with in an isolated facility protecting them from the harsh outside world. Kiruko, a young woman who works as a sort of travel guide who is incredibly resourceful, accepts a mysterious woman’s dying wish to take a teenager named Maru to a place called “Heaven.”
Maru is on a mission to find a place called Heaven with someone with a face like his, and Kiruko is searching for a few people connected to her past who have dabbled with some shady business. Far, far away from these two, Tokio is a teenager who has grown up safely and mostly happily with other children in a facility cut away from the madness and harsh realities of the current state of Japan. He, along with several of the children there, is starting to question this place with its nursery-style setting run mostly by robots. Puberty brings curiosity, discovery, and the desire for more which results in unearthing great secrets and terrifying truths. Tokio may be living in “Heaven” but is it truly a paradise or someplace more sinister– like a prison?
Get in Loser, We’re Solving a Mystery:
Folks that Tengoku Daimakyou could appeal to include:
-Folks who are looking for anime with coming-of-age vibes
-Folks looking for anime based on ongoing manga series
-Folks who are looking for anime with a true psychological lean
-Folks who enjoy the action, adventure, sci-fi, and horror genres
-Folks looking to be shocked, surprised, happy, and just feel the full range of emotions
What Makes this Anime Standout:
The world building in Tengoku Daimakyou is glorious as it is detailed: in the ruined country Kiruko and Maru find scattered pockets of civilization, some more thriving than others. From a bursting farming area growing everything from crops like tomatoes to marijuana to small cities with shops dedicated to preserving arcade games and media like music and books, the journey takes the two to many places. With society surviving, brings politics and economics which differ from area to area of course.
“BETRAYAL”
In one location, some local bandits prey on travelers seeking lodging, directions, and clean water. In another location, two different groups with conflicting ideologies fight for the rare working machinery with lots of opinions about human life and where science places a part in preserving or ending life. Kiruko and Maru find betrayal at every turn in every new place that they venture to: some tragedies avoided and some stumbled upon with greater heartbreak.
Tokio and his classmates that he’s grown up with and lived with have and mostly thrived in an isolated facility protecting them from the harsh outside world. But is this place a haven or a testing ground? This part of the narrative leans heavily into ethics and when, in this new world that has risen from the rumble, goes too far with its power and absolutes. As each episode brings us closer to the truth, we learn that the children are special, all have some kind of talent or capability–whether that be a talent for mechanical engineering, foresight, or just being extra flexible and loving physical activity.
“SURVIVAL”
This nursery style facility seems to be raising children–but to what end? To whose benefit and to what goal? Their lives and care push the boundaries for what is proper and what could be against the law; the few adults and robots tasked with protecting these children have agendas that bring up the importance for reasoning and consent. With Tokio, Kona, Mimihime, Shiro, Anzu, and Taka find that there’s more to just surviving as they been to question what and when is too far and too much in the pursuit to save a life? To save mankind? When the narrative introduced a huge reveal regarding Tokio, I love that I started questioning who played God when it came to medical care and what is appropriate for those most vulnerable–minors and children?
Perhaps what I love most about Tengoku Daimakyou is the coming-of-age approach to growing up and living in a dystopia–it is not a simple one at all. The complexities of puberty and adolescence play a big hand in not just the storytelling but how these characters, the young adults at least, face the world. Kiruko’s backstory with Asakusa, Robin, and Haruki featured a heart-wrenching foundation story wise where Haruki’s feelings of being in the wrong body feels at home in an anime about children and teenagers. Her complicated feelings about womanhood and body dysphoria come across as truly searing as she’s figuring out what life is now, without family as she has to rebuild her life and find purpose. The reveal behind her new start at life is the first big reveal of the series that threw me for a loop and had me scrambling trying to think back on all that I knew about this character and how her traumas were multi-fold.
When I think about Tokio and the gang’s lives, far from Kiruko and Maru, isolated and protected–at a cost for nefarious reasons, I am again lost for words. When I started Tengoku Daimakyou, I thought the place where they lived and studied was a sort of paradise, perhaps to help protect the sanctity of life in a ruined world. A place to raise up the next generation and to keep civilization going, and yet as I kept watching all I could see it as cells in a petri dish, ready to switch out of the experiment to sate curiosity and satisfaction for others. First loves, exploring emotions, and bodies and questioning the outside of the outside all sound like typical wanderings of adolescence. Yet, it is all intensified here in this place where these young adults have a different kind of upbringing. Tokio’s storyline takes a turn in questioning when does childhood end as gender also colors the experiences in this place and a surprising medical checkup shocks the facility.
Tengoku Daimakyou’s anime adaptation produced by Production I.G. does not disappoint on the visual side that fans have come to love and associate with the animation powerhouse. From the philosophical yet high energy opening sequence (with an aptly named opening song titled, “innocent arrogance” by BiSH) to the quiet moments of characters attempting to voice the troubling swell of emotions when real life happens, this series can be praised for being a visual treat. I really, really appreciated the smoothness of the action sequences, the dive into the body horror, the emphasis on the dreams and foreboding, and symbolism. As someone who read a few volumes of the manga first before starting the anime adaptation, I really found the attention to detail on the dreams of certain characters a plus to the storytelling that further scenes from the original material and made certain episodes stand out more. Later, more startling scenes are masterfully enhanced or masked in a way that make them a bit more bearable to watch later towards the end of the thirteen episodes slot of anime that we received.
Tengoku Daimakyou certainly pushes the envelope on adapting a manga with an incredible story about dreams, adolescents, and reality. Moving through all the genres of science fiction, action, and thriller made for a thrilling and damning narrative centering children and young adults pressing forward in a broken world leaning on limited experience, but it was full of heart and huge reveals that challenge viewers thoughts on gender, family–found and blood-,and purpose. This is an anime series that I would recommend watching for those who can stomach the psychological dive into the darkness of the lives of children and teenagers being fodder for adults for their own selfish and nefarious plans. While there is certainly a conversation to be had about the later episodes and if they successfully wrap up this leg of the story or undo most of the foundation of it, the series as a whole is mostly solid. The anime is also an animated offering that serves as a reminder that life can and is manufactured and to what end can those individuals involved break free and create their own realities, their own versions of heaven?
Tengoku Daimakyou , better known in English as Heavenly Delusion is based on manga created by Masakazu Ishiguro, published through Denpa.
You can find Tengoku Daimakyou currently streaming on Hulu for U.S. based watchers.
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The post Hidden Gem Anime Series to Enjoy: ‘Tengoku Daimakyou’ appeared first on Black Nerd Problems.
A new spell is about to be cast. In news reported by The New York Times, Hayao Miyazaki will be creating a brand new Studio Ghibli movie. The last new Studio Ghibli movie, according to the publication. And one we are all excited to see take shape.
The article offers us a glimpse at the film, saying:
Neither Miyazaki nor Suzuki will share much about the forthcoming film, beyond the fact that it is based on a 1937 novel by Genzaburo Yoshino. The story concerns a 15-year-old boy in Tokyo, small for his age and fond of mischief, whose father has recently died. In the English translation by Bruno Navasky, published in October, the boy gazes out at the city and is overwhelmed: “The watching self, the self being watched, and furthermore the self becoming conscious of all this, the self observing itself by itself, from afar, all those various selves overlapped in his heart, and suddenly he began to feel dizzy.”
The actual content of the film could be anything — Suzuki has described it as “fantasy on a grand scale” — since Miyazaki doesn’t so much borrow stories as liberate them from their origins. (In the pseudobiographical “The Wind Rises,” he gives the real-life Jiro Horikoshi a fictional wife dying of tuberculosis.) All Suzuki will share is that he recognizes himself in one of the characters, who is not human.
Miyazaki’s works deal with many themes, popular among them coming-of-age narratives and discussions of nature vs. man. Fantasy always serves to heighten the aspects of reality that we can all understand. And, of course, incredibly intricate animation that soothes and moves us ties it all together. If this film will offer us something even grander than before, then it will truly astound.
Though the 1937 novel goes unnamed in the article, it appears Miyazaki will adapt How Do You Live? While this news appears to have released in some capacity at previous times, this feels like a formalization of intent. The book has long influenced Miyazaki, who cites it as his favorite childhood read.
The new Miyazaki movie, tentatively titled, How Do You Live, has also set its release date. It will arrive in Japan on July 14, 2023. In the US, the movie will be titled “The Boy and the Heron” and will arrive “later this year,” per its North American distributor GKids.
The movie released a poster in December 2022, but recently revealed that there would be no other images or trailers released to tease fans. We’ll be going into Miyazaki’s How Do You Live without any more information.
But will this truly be Miyazaki’s last film? Of course, Miyazaki has famously announced retirement before, only to return. Well, only time will tell. Miyazaki’s producer and partner Suzuki has only this insight, which the article shares. “In the West, we always need to know how things end. At Ghibli, the last scene is often a mystery.”
We look forward to this next great adventure.
Originally published on November 23, 2021.
The post Hayao Miyazaki’s ‘Last’ New Studio Ghibli Movie Sets Release Date, Won’t Get a Trailer appeared first on Nerdist.
One of my favorite things to do is go to Black ass movies, with a Black ass audience in the theater. Everyone with separate lives and experiences that all relate to “Blackness” in its various forms. Growing up, I had an interesting relationship with Blackness. I experienced a huge amount of colorism growing up, and it became hard to appreciate my complexion until I reached college. My Blackness was always associated with something negative, something that needed to be diminished in order to be accepted as beautiful. I would appreciate the communal culture, but I rarely saw myself in a position of appreciation throughout various forms of media.
When folks question what it means to be Black, there’s a “jokey, but serious” merit-based system that decides your “level” of Blackness. It’s honored by the actions in relation to culture, language, reaction to danger, and many more things that put us in contrast to what the world assumes us to be. In the same place where our merit-based system exists, whiteness has consistently tried to dissect it for their understanding. So when I think about dark skin women depicted in media, we’re usually upheld to a certain view of Blackness upheld by colorism/white supremacy. We’re seen as aggressors (Pam, Martin), needed to be sacrificed in order for people to learn valuable lessons (Candy, Pose), or even the scapegoat (Annalise Keating, How to Get Away with Murder). So when I saw that Lisa’s friends loved her, looked out for her, and even when they felt like she was making bad mistakes they did not leave her to die. It was relieving.
What is the Epitome of Blackness?
Dark skin women were written as helpless or overly aggressive; depicted to be void of redemption. When Black people are in horror films, we pray for them. Though we know their fate was already written, we close our eyes and hope. When I saw Lisa in The Blackening making stereotypical “horror movie” mistakes, I found myself shouting for her preservation. “Dark skin baby girl, turn back!” “My sister in melanated blessings, please! No! I beg!” I wanted her to feel the comfort of forgiveness. The kind of grace only offered to white people when they make a detrimental mistake.
The most beautiful parts in The Blackening were the moments of grace. It never made sense to me when Black folks were the first to die in horror movies, because we’ve been conditioned to be the most aware. Conditioned to be the most prepared to fight against anything prepared to kill us. The Blackening knows the secret: we root for everybody Black. But it also begs the question what our “Blackness” is being compared to? What are the ranges and limitations society puts on our identity to define us and make us tangible?
In the story, Lisa recently rekindled with her ex, Nnamdi (another dark skin character who was also staying in the cabin with them). All of the homies thought that he was toxic for her, considering that he cheated, and it’s insinuated that this is not the first time their relationship was called into question. Dark skin women are often depicted as independent people who don’t need to be cared for and cherished because they have all the tools necessary to sustain themselves. Instead, Lisa was given the “friendship side eye.” Lisa was still offered love, support and was not left behind when their lives were in danger. Lisa was considered to be an integral part of the team who understood the mission, and she did everything in her power to secure her, and her friends’ survival.
Rooting for Everybody Black
When we allow dark skin women to have faults but still protect them and treat their falls with grace, we’re able to appreciate them in their “well roundedness.” We can see their rage as human and their faults as an integral part of a story, instead of something that needs to be discarded. My favorite parts in The Blackening were the moments when Lisa did not adhere to stereotypical forms of Blackness, because dark skin women are expected to perform this even more due to their complexion. Our “dark skinned-ness” now paired with microaggressions when we can’t name the things white people understand about our basic culture. The Blackening understood that when Black folks talk about Blackness and our relationship to it, it ain’t white folks business.
We understand that white supremacy always affected the way society interprets Blackness. Without proper cultural analysis, plenty of our sayings and reactions get appropriated and utilized out of context. The Blackening showcased the horrors of looking at Blackness through the “merit-based” white supremacist lens while trying to maintain each other. How white supremacy affects Black folks differently depending on complexion, sexuality and stereotypes is embedded in each of the character decisions throughout the film. It’s showcased in who we see leaving the house to look for a way out, versus who stays. We see it in whose life is at risk and who gets special attention when they’re hurt. Our intersectional struggles have their own cultural context; historical maintenance is a communal effort not a burden. The Blackening dissects the diaspora not by ignoring colorism, homophobia and sexism, but by allowing these intersectional realities to influence how they survive.
White Supremacy, The True Enemy
I’m not much of a scary movie girl, but when the danger switch comes on, I’m rooting for everybody Black. Regardless of if they adhere to the scary movie stereotypes, I am praying for their survival and low therapy bills when they escape. I appreciated The Blackening and its representation of Blackness in various forms, from the cringey to the frightening. Black characters, especially dark skin characters, are often depicted with a sort of aggression that’s supposed to allude that they could survive anything. Black people are used as a sacrifice to set the tone. “This strong person did not survive, and they had the most gruesome death so we know what is possible.” Black folks know that when you’re trying to survive, whether it is a workplace, academia or even a cabin in the woods, community is the only thing that keeps us afloat. Our best method of survival revolves around preservation. The biggest risk is when we don’t realize that we’re upholding white supremacy, and it affects how we preserve one another. When someone upholds it to the point where it affects the perception of our existence, I won’t lie, I don’t even know what to do at that point.
The Blackening created Black characters that are allowed to be messy and still make them rootable. The villain remains what we always knew to be true, those who uphold white supremacy as a marker for Blackness. Being Black as fuck is subjective and upholding merit-based Blackness can create dangerous systems that push each other away. What do we rate our Blackness in relation to? The truth is that we’ve seen these characters, or we’ve seen ourselves in them. I enjoyed seeing a bunch of Black folks across the diaspora with separate experiences but understanding the underlying layers of what’s being presented for them.
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The post ‘The Blackening’: When Things Get Spooky, We Ride Together appeared first on Black Nerd Problems.