Aspiring Equal Oppertunity Feminist Granola girl.

I did some extra research on Mamoru Oshii’s Lupin III project and found a Japanese article about it that shed some light on both Oshii’s intents with it as well as Miyazaki’s intents with Castle of Cagliostro.

Apparently, the reasoning behind Oshii’s pitch, especially the ending where it’s revealed that everything is fake, was that both Oshii and Miyazaki felt that Lupin as a character could no longer fit in the world of the present day (back then, that was the mid-1980s). Miyazaki purposefully made Lupin more of a matured swashbuckling character who stole Clarisse’s heart at the end of his movie because he felt that Lupin’s character worked back during the Japanese post-war economic miracle when people shared the romantic dream that there were still rare things that could never be bought, but not so much in a present-day Japan where you can buy absolutely anything if you have the money to spend. Whereas Miyazaki addressed this supposed problem by having Lupin ending the film stealing someone’s heart, Oshii’s planned approach was to have Lupin steal the fiction.

The angel’s fossil, the macguffin that this never-to-be caper was going to revolve around, was supposed to represent fiction itself. Oshii’s plan was to have Lupin steal his own existence within fiction, making it so that Lupin had never existed to begin with. He was essentially trying to make Lupin pull a “death of the author” on himself.

Thinking this over, I can see where both Miyazaki and Oshii come from but, in my own personal opinion, both of them (but especially Oshii) unfortunately missed a few things that the past few decades of the franchise have proven. Firstly, the world is constantly changing, sometimes in ways we don’t expect, and throughout all that, Lupin has always adapted. Secondly, as much as they have lamented that their efforts to shake up the franchise went fruitless, those efforts haven’t really failed. As a matter of fact, I believe that they’ve managed to help deepen the franchise’s identity in ways that allowed it to adapt with the times in the first place. Thirdly, even people who can only look at the world through a cynical, jaded, or otherwise pessimistic lens are in need of something hopeful once in a while. Lupin has provided that spark of hope for quite a lot of people, and I’m not just talking about the people Lupin meets on his adventures.

I can’t imagine a film where Lupin purposefully erases his own existence would have gone over all that well, even back then, but that’s just how I see it. What do you think? I’m curious as to what other fans think about this.

This is so interesting! God the more I find out about this project the more fascinated I am by it and the more annoyed I am it never got made! (Where did you find this article by the way?)

If done well, the idea that Lupin steals his own existence within the realm of fiction could’ve been really cool and interesting, or at least fun to analyze and discuss (similar to how people still talk about End of Evangelion over 20 years later). Especially since I found out recently that Oshii apparently wanted the movie’s animation to be very detailed and fluid (he did reportedly bring Hideaki Anno and some animators that would go on to work on Akira on board), if this movie got made I could see it being a beautiful and fascinating take on the franchise and, again, an analysis gold mine (again, similar to End of Eva).

I said earlier that I’m not a fan of these meta takes on Lupin where it’s implied the character we follow isn’t the “real” Lupin (i.e. Mystery of Mamo, Green Vs Red, the goddamn mask scene from Part 5), but I’m also a sucker for deep character studies and I feel like we could’ve gotten that here if the goal was to examine how Lupin fits into the then-modern world. I personally love Miyazaki’s take on Lupin and since Oshii’s idea is from the same source it could’ve worked really well.

Or it could’ve failed spectacularly (like Miyazaki’s did at first) and we could’ve gone back to how the franchise was before like nothing ever happened! I guess we’ll never really know.

This is the article I found (http://www.style.fm/as/13_special/oshii008.shtml). As I said before, it’s in Japanese. It even confirms the connection between this project and Angel’s Egg outright, as it quotes a statement from Oshii that he took the idea of an angel’s fossil from there and made the OVA to avenge his take on Lupin that didn’t come to be. Several other elements from the pitch also ended up in future Oshii films: The tower architect’s suicide, a side character (Fujiko in this case) going off on her own to expose the truth behind the macguffin, and a climactic tower-climbing scene would end up in the first Patlabor movie, its sequel would have the destruction of a fictional version of Tokyo, and Oshii would finally get to have a main character going through an existential crisis in his take on Ghost In The Shell.

I can’t deny that the idea of Lupin stealing the story itself is a fascinating concept that deserves to be explored. With Lupin having broken the fourth wall several times in the original manga for comedic effect, it would add an additional layer of loyalty to the source material. However, it’s the reasoning behind Oshii’s idea that I found a little iffy, maybe even too fatalistic. As harsh as it is to say about a celebrated director (both Miyazaki and Oshii), it sounds a bit like their vision of the character at the time was stuck in the past. As I’ve mentioned, Lupin’s character has adapted with the times, and Miyazaki’s take helped broaden the scope from stealing literal treasures to stealing metaphorical treasures, which arguably bestowed the franchise with even more possibilities to evolve. It’s kind of hard to argue that his character doesn’t work anymore for the world of today when he has constantly evolved in ways that accommodate for exactly that.

But yeah, the article also pretty much speculates that the reception and ripple effect of Oshii’s Lupin, had it actually seen the light of day, could’ve gone either way. Plus, if it had actually come to fruition, then Angel’s Egg and the Patlabor films probably wouldn’t have existed at all.

This is such a cool concept but I find it utterly strange that many people who’ve worked on Lupin III find the idea of a gentleman thief outdated. I haven’t read the linked article — going to once I move to where my translation software is — but I’m guessing it was written before Part 5, the series that points out this concept specifically, and then flips it on its head, because Lupin changes with the times, just like all of us.

(The “who IS Lupin III?”/Dread Pirate Roberts/mask-type situation has been a constant in Lupin canon since the comic [which is what the mask is referencing in Part 5; it’s a direct nod to the manga], and I like the idea that he is both infinite and the same but ever-changing both literally and otherwise, but I can understand why it bugs people.)

We need our Robin Hoods, our Goemon Ishikawas (the first one), our rogueish thieves fighting for the powerless…though Lupin III generally doesn’t do it intentionally, he almost always ends up a hero one way or another. And maybe it feels like the world has outgrown needing gentleman thieves, but we definitely haven’t outgrown needing heroes.

The trial is currently underway in Australia and if it goes according to plan, the nano-robot antibodies will be able to fight cells around tumors that can help the tumor while also boosting the capability of the cells inhibiting the growth of the cancerous cells.

The antibodies were invented by Professor Yanay Ofran and are based on human and animal antibodies.

Their inventor said that until now, antibody treatments have been based on human or animal antibodies. They are then developed in labs and mass produced, but the final product retains limitations from the original antibodies.

These limitations are removed when he creates antibodies from scratch on a computer, and then produces them from amino acids in a process akin to 3D printing.

Ofran’s breakthrough results from a laborious research process, which involves creating many millions of antibodies and monitoring their behavior in the lab. The new AU-007 antibody treatment is the first computer-designed antibody to enter a human trial, he said.

Source: BGR.com (link in bio)

#science #future #research https://www.instagram.com/p/CmEdWlIucQ5/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Tiny mealworms may hold part of the solution to our giant plastics problem. Not only are they able to consume various forms of plastic, as previous Stanford research has shown, they can eat Styrofoam containing a common toxic chemical additive and still be safely used as protein-rich feedstock for other animals, according to a new Stanford study published in Environmental Science & Technology.

Polystyrene foam, a plastic often referred to as Styrofoam, is cheap to make packing material, but recycling it is difficult and expensive. It also breaks down into smaller parts without actually decomposing. While disposable take-out food has largely phased out polystyrene foam in favor of cardboard and other recyclable materials, the material is still very common in insulation and packaging.

Mealworms have a reputation as an agricultural pest, because they’ll eat just about anything. That seems to be true, in that they’ll also consume plastics and other materials not normally considered, well, food.

In a new study, those Stanford researchers discovered that mealworms can consume polystyrene foam, even chemical-laced polystyrene foam.
This could provide a cheap, effective way to deal with plastic packing and insulation materials, while still keeping mealworms as a viable food option for livestock.

Source: Stanford News (link in bio)

#mealworm #research #sustainability #recycle https://www.instagram.com/p/Ce088Yqr5UH/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Her name is Katalin Karikó. Hungarian. Daughter of a butcher. Her thesis work became the basis of the mRNA vaccine technology. Read the article here.

My favorite bits from the article include how Dr. Kariko celebrated the fact that the vaccines that used her mRNA research worked

“On Nov. 8, the first results of the Pfizer-BioNTech study came in, showing that the mRNA vaccine offered powerful immunity to the new virus. Dr. Kariko turned to her husband. “Oh, it works,” she said. “I thought so.”

To celebrate, she ate an entire box of Goobers chocolate-covered peanuts. By herself.”

Read more: https://www.thehappybroadcast.com/news/eu-parliament-voted-to-phase-out-animal-testing

-YEAR TWO- WEEK 1

Maya Refresh/ Vertex Painting Research:

We were tasked to create low-poly assets of an environment scene or a character referenced from a 2D animated series. And thus I decided to research the style of Disney series “Star vs the Forces of Evil”.  Based on the cartoony and sketchy style of the series, it would be very interesting to create the 3D version of it and colour this project using the vertex painting technique.

Being a disney series, the environment style of the series is very sketchy, and very quirky, the  artist uses curves to define a unique and cheerful environment, creating a child-friendly sense to the show (it is a disney show after all). Despite the changes of animation studios throughout the whole season they still followed the consistency of the art direction, but the art style changes subtly every season.

Comparing the use of colour, lighting and shadows in the series, in the first season, everything is in bright, vibrant colours and there were barely any use of shadows and cold colours. That gradually changed season by season as the story grew deeper and darker, thus the changes in the art style made sense.

Therefore, I have decided to create a 3D replica of Star’s room in the human world. As we have a one week deadline, I would not be able to create all the objects in the room but I will do my best to re-create the room in 3D. This will be a very fun project!!

The World Spent $14B on Conservation and We Just Discovered How Well it Worked

jkr doesnt understand anything about america if she thinks the northern and southern states will share the same wizarding school lollll. like the south would have formed its own school anyways after, if not before or during the civil war?

hell east coast and west coast magic has got to be different (european settlers on the east, mexican/hispanic in the whole new mexico, arizona, cali area). 

not to mention historically black wizarding schools would have absolutely been a thing bc african magic survived thru slavery hello??? not to mention under slavery and jim crow laws i highly doubt black children would have been allowed to study with white students. you could even make the assumption that white slavers forbade them for using their magic at all (african magic = dark magic and all that Fun Racism)

underdeveloped and struggling to thrive native american reservation schools of magic in the dakotas? 

texas has to have its own school on its own school. like its just a given fact. TEXAS WIZARDING SCHOOL QUDDITCH (like texas high school football #texasforever)

and obviously you have the elitist new england schools which everyone assumes is the pinnacle of american magic education lol

The U.S. would have tons of day schools in every region and zero live-in boarding schools.

The U.S. simply doesn’t have the same history of live-in “public schools” that England has and they make no sense at all in an American context.

PLUS all the stuff listed in this post.

J. K. Rowing has zero understanding of American culture or history.

The thing is, America is so heavily colonized that there’s no way the magic here would look similar at all to a European or British wizard. First off, you’re telling me Aztecs, Hopi, Seminole, and Lakota peoples (to name a few) would all have the same wizarding traditions as each other? No, I do not buy it. There would have been a substantial diversity between larger tribes.

Now we have first contact and you’d have Spanish and Mesoamerican magical traditions interbreeding heavily into probably a pretty solid fusion. The French tended to trade openly in the Northeast, and likely wouldn’t have assimilated as thoroughly as the Spanish but more so than the British who tended to just go “ours now, you leave.”

Then come waves of immigration, including the African Diaspora/the slave trade and focusing heavily in the south and northeast. Alongside that, you have French Canadians (Acadians) moving down the Mississippi into Louisiana and giving it a heavy French and Caribbean influence. You have Scotch and Irish immigrants moving into the Appalachians where (in some places) they’re in close contact with Cherokee and similar tribes, and in others with slaves. We can assume those groups would trade magic thoroughly amongst themselves in the few hundred years of living in close contact. You have Latin American immigration coming up through the south west and bringing their Mesoamerican/Spanish hybrid magic where it would be informed by Creole traditions formed by hybridizing French, African, and Native techniques along with the dominant British traditions. The Midwest tends to be Scandinavian, but again their magic is influenced by people they would have had trade with such as plains Indians and French trappers in the north.

Then, of course, Chinese and Japanese schools of magic coming into California where it blends with traditional Mexican schools. You have Puerto Rican, Italian, and Jewish immigrant communities living in close contact with each other as well as whatever hybrid Dutch-British-African hybrid is going on in NYC. That’s not even getting into more recent waves from Vietnam, Laos, and the Middle East, for example.

What I’m saying here is that not only would American magic look like an unholy hodgepodge to a European wizard, but there would be regional variations within the country that would be almost impossible to even work around.

I mean, say what you will about the French and British, but they’ve spent most of the last thousand years in close contact with each other and you can assume that French and British wizards and witches would probably at least know what their magic looked like. We’re talking now about cultures spread across the entire globe taking up residence in one area where they’re now surrounded by people with entirely different traditions. After a few generations, there’s going to be a lot of adaptation and adoption of techniques to the point that your grandparents wouldn’t recognize your wandwork because you’re now using something adapted from a Hmong style with a distinctly Norwegian flare and youre casting it with Incan words.

I mean Jesus, just look at the variations in American food from region to region if you don’t believe me.