Ide Cyan ([info]ide_cyan) wrote in [info]whileaway,
2006-08-15 12:54:00
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Usula LeGuin on Gedo Senki (Tales from Earthsea)

Found this information via [info]glazzal (here):

The Anime News Network reports on a preview screening of Gedo Senki (Studio Ghibli's adaptation of Tales of Earthsea, directed by Goro Miyazaki) held for Ursula LeGuin.

There's an English translation of the synopsis of the movie on UKLG.com. (The plot seems like a mix of ideas from several of LeGuin's Earthsea books, from A Wizard of Earthsea to The Other Wind, rather than the collection of stories she published under the title Tales from Earthsea, and of several ideas not from LeGuin's books.)

And Ursula LeGuin's first response to the movie is also online. She writes in it about "the issue of color":

I am told that the Japanese audience perceives them differently. I am told that they may perceive this Ged as darker than my eye does. I hope so.

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  • 9 comments

[info]callunav

August 15 2006, 20:02:06 UTC 5 years ago

Thank you for the links, especially the one of LeGuin herself writing. She's got such basic dignity. And they're such stripped sentences; it's a very careful piece. There may have been ranting to trusted friends, but everything to the public is seamles.

[info]holyschist

August 15 2006, 23:57:40 UTC 5 years ago

It is quite possible that they will--they're already used to the anime convention that Japanese characters are drawn with big eyes and randomly colored hair for "visual interest."

I'm not sure, though, that LeGuin's average reader perceives Ged as dark-skinned as she does--I read the books many times as a child, and if she spent much time on the physical appearances of many of the characters, it didn't stick in my mind at all. I never really thought about it.

[info]polymexina

August 16 2006, 01:54:49 UTC 5 years ago

i knew they were brown people, for sure.

[info]holyschist

August 16 2006, 02:13:54 UTC 5 years ago

I didn't think they weren't, but it wasn't what stuck in my mind.

[info]holyschist

August 16 2006, 02:14:41 UTC 5 years ago

Grah. Hit enter too soon.

Mostly the psychological aspects of the story caught my attention (the Nameless Thing and the Tombs really, really freaked me out).

[info]polymexina

August 16 2006, 02:29:49 UTC 5 years ago

the plot was important, yeah, but for a lot of her fans, the fact that it was POC in fantasy as main characters was a big deal, which is why the whole earthsea/sci fi thing really irritated folks.

[info]holyschist

August 16 2006, 04:27:05 UTC 5 years ago

I do think that's important and I appreciate it now, but for a long time I tended to gloss over physical descriptions of characters in books, and my impression is that a lot of other readers do, too. So while it's something that we (and LeGuin) strongly associate with the books, I don't think that means the average reader notices it as much (and it is one of the reasons I appreciate the books so much--they don't fall into Here-Is-The-Stereotypical-Pseudo-African-Society-Now pattern that many fantasy books do when dealing with POC characters). Most people take it for granted that most fantasy characters are white, and I think consequently don't always realize how radical it is when they're not.

It is kind of interesting to see how that pattern plays out in Japan, where the main audience isn't white and has a whole different set of racial stereotypes, prejudices, and experiences to bring to fiction.

[info]ide_cyan

August 16 2006, 05:29:31 UTC 5 years ago

The "average reader" is a politically charged construct.

[info]glazzal

August 16 2006, 00:37:35 UTC 5 years ago

ANN forums:
- Evan Miller's translation of Goro Miyazaki's post
- mako's interpretation of certain lines

Other links:
- Gedo Senki fansite (has translations)
- 2nd trailer on Youtube
- Official site (entirely in Japanese, and Flash, but it's beautiful)
- English Wiki

Despite Le Guin's comments, ANN reports,
Gedo Senki Still #1 (2006-08-11 04:30:57)
Gedo Senki took the top spot at the Japanese box office for the second straight week, once again beating Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. Source: Animenation
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