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How dare you, Studio Ghibli, do that this weekend?

It’s my dad’s third year anniversary, and I’m Setsuko in this GIF.

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Grave of the Fireflies is remains my favorite animated film, and the only animated film in my overall Top10 favorites.

Shunji Iwai’s neo-classical romance, Love Letter, about the woman who wrote letters to her deceased lover and got responses back, is over 20 years old now since its release. However, its mark as a pop culture reference across Asia is undeniable. In its time, the film made actress Miho Nakayama a household name, and it launched Shunji Iwai’s filmmaking career (and hence has given us: Ayumi Ito and Yu Aoi).

The film’s style and cinematography, courtesy of Noboru Shinoda (RIP) has inspired countless of filmmakers across East Asia who have headed to Otaru (小樽市) or other similar snowy places to capture the essence of the film [cue: 张一白 Zhang Yibai’s segment in Run for Love (奔爱), which featured Eddie Peng and Zhang Ziyi], and the classic (though simple) quote of “o-genki desuka?” (お元気ですか?) [1] has been referenced in various places…

Just look at the members of -relatively new- Kpop group G-FRIEND, who played a round of movie quotes to decide who would be the host of that specific One Fine Day episode’s segment (10 months after their debut). The group is formed by 6 young women, all who were born post-95. In fact, eldest member (and leader of the group), Sowon, was born almost 8 months after the release of Love Letter. But it is member Yuju (’97) who first references the movie with the knowledge of all the group.

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So if you put your hands close together to shout out the words “o-genki desuka?” and the person in front answers back the same way with a “atashi genki desu.” That’s a Shunji Iwai shout-out to ya~

All these feelings~

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=et3j-ZsZ-k8

Next week (+ one day) is also my dad’s 3rd anniversary, so this just hit right in the feels.

The agency in charge of the campaign of Dream Fearlessly [also] was BBDO New York.

… from 10 miles from the movie theater xD

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It’s like bright highlighter marker color xD I love it. There’s been a couple of other Chinese posters [the series for Song of the Phoenix (百鸟朝凤), and Big Fish & Begonia (大鱼海棠)].

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I’m not the biggest fan, but I still made a list xD

beginners-guide-priyanka-chopra

Happy reading!

Mina-san! Genki? Ha!

Forgive the complete absent from the blog recently (two entries last month, and this is the first one this month!), I’ve been generally “more busy” updating the MUBI (the site formerly known as The Auteurs lol) database than even actually keeping up with news (trailers/music) on YAM Magazine or watching movies and shows. I’ve also been occupied watching Korean shows, which tend to make everyone procrastinate. And it’s not like it was priority-watching, either~ I’ve been watching Solar and Eric Nam’s We Got Married episodes, but my favorite watch and re-watches was Mamamoo x GFRIEND’s Showtime.

I don’t actually stan GFRIEND, and I already have biases. Bless.

moonbyul-sinb-new-girl-crush

Bless, SinB. Bless SinB with Moonbyul, Bless New Crush Star. LOL

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‘Tis a thing of pure beauty.

Otherwise known as SamuraiDroneCatIdolSuperhumanRubeGoldbergViewerWarningTooExplosiveHighSchoolGirl (侍ドローン猫アイドル神業ピタゴラ閲覧注意爆速すぎる女子高生) — I don’t exactly know how the translation in English came to being, but in the Japanese, there’s a mention of Pythagora (as in PythagoraSwitch).

Also, obvious dig at Shideido’s commercial.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5BVDfHnGvE

Apparently, BiBi now has an official Facebook page (finally!). And it turns out that I’ve missed a couple of photoshoots, since BiBi has been promoting the release of Cold War 2, one of them a shoot by an unknown photographer for the July issue of Harper’s Bazaar China, featuring this gorgeous dual cover.

bib-zhou-bichang-harper-jul16

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I just finally finished catching up to Fresh Off the Boat, and though it seems like there were a lot of filler episodes, there were actually a lot of more meaningful moments too. Of course, Chinese New Year celebrations was a major thing, but I also enjoyed the episode of Lao Ban Santa, which focused on Evan’s loss of innocence… alongside the development of his OBVIOUS gambling problem. First the bunny he lost to grandma in poker, now his Pogs. And his totally Machiavellian plans in the Jessica Place Melrose Place spoof.

And Emery gets his own development too! Loved that he was so devastated to find out his parents’ definition of romance, how we got to see him dealing with his anger and frustration, and his best moment having to deal with puberty.

I think I may have to write a review. xD

Anyway~ this post is because my life is literally the “polite fight” every single time we go out for lunch or dinner with my aunties.

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inside-out-bing-bong

So I finally re-watched Inside Out in Original English audio track, and the feelings for Bing Bong were more real than ever. When I originally went to the theater to catch it in one of the late at night shows, it was still presented in Spanish dub and parents with children were still there. One of them parents ruined the movie for me when, at the moment of said tears, his daughter (seating behind us) began to tear up. He did what parents shouldn’t do—- he shamed his kid saying “why are you crying? Is this a scary movie?

Eff you, dad. Let your kid cry, it’s a freaking emotional scene in the movie. And who the eff cries in scary movies? Se dice “ya pasó, ya pasó” so you can calm your kid down.

Really makes me think of never ever going to big movies because people can ruin your experience.