Though it’s not my favorite of the nine (soon to be ten) Pokemon movies, movie 9 holds a special place in my heart because I was studying in Japan in July 2006 when the movie first came out. I was lucky enough to get to see it in a small theater in Kyoto a few days before I had to return to the US. The theater was very small compared to the ones out here in CA and there were a lot of loud kids there, but hey, it was a great experience to see an anime movie in a real Japanese theater ^^ The English version of the movie just premiered about a week ago on Cartoon Network. I didn’t bother to watch it though because 1) Pocketmonsters.net had just released a fansubbed version of the movie a little while before and 2) I dislike the new PUSA voice actors and it’s the first movie that’s using them. But after watching the fansubbed version of it (and understanding a lot more compared to watching the raw in the theater =P), it turned out to be one of the better Pokemon movies in my opinion. So I felt like writing a review of it (plus I can’t think of anything else to blog about tonight ^^,,,)

Isao Takahata’s acclaimed Ghibli film, Grave of the Fireflies, aired last night on the Turner Classic Movie channel. But unlike other Ghibli films that have aired on TCM in the past, only the English dub version of this one was shown. This is one of the few Ghibli films I hadn’t seen before; I was avoiding it because I knew it would be extremely depressing and the kind of movie I would have to psyche myself for. But I finally watched it, and I liked it, though it isn’t one I would want to watch over and over, not because I don’t think it’s a masterpiece, which it is, but because it’s such a tragically sad story.