The Neighbors

Thoreau settles by the Walden Pond and begins to experience the nature. The Bean Field and Brute Neighbors from Thoreau’s experiences in Walden demonstrate an important aspect of life. In The Bean Field, Thoreau describes his life in cultivating beans on a rural field. Meanwhile, Thoreau explains his observation of the ant combat in Brute Neighbors. Overall, The Bean Field and Brute Neighbors suggest that every life has its own purpose and the purpose help creates a meaningful life. In The…

Exploring the Function of Music in Flying Sequences on Hayao Miyazaki’s Animation Film Hayao Miyazaki is a 73 year-old animation film director from Japan, who has directed 11 animation films and won lots of international awards. He deeply loves flying from his early age, so the flying sequences are quite common in his films. ("Hayao Miyazaki," 2004) There are 8 films containing “flying” in his total 11 films. These plots always come with background music, and these music becomes widespread.…

widely acclaimed animation directors of all time. While Studio Ghibli is often nicknamed, “The Disney of Japan”, it more than stands on its own and, in my opinion, is superior in terms of storytelling and visuals. He is most known for his movie, My Neighbor Totoro, whose titular creature has become the mascot for the studio and an icon in Japanese media. While most reviews you would find for this movie are overwhelmingly positive, there are always a few rotten tomatoes in the basket. A…

Honey, I Hate the Neighbors The process of buying a home can be a daunting and stress full task for an individual. The combination of finding an ideal dwelling within an individual’s price range, the process of obtaining a home loan and taking the responsibility of becoming a home owning adult can mount tremendous amounts of stress on any individual. Although after the process is completed, a veil of satisfaction will rain on new homeowners because completing such a stressful task without…

In My Neighbor Totoro, Mei and Satsuki Kusakabe explore the wild woods and let their imaginations run wild. Seeing magical creatures like a kind majestic beast, to a cat bus that has headlights as eyes seems too surreal. The movie takes you to a whole new world where you can find adventure through the eyes of two imaginative girls. Director, Hayao Miyazaki made this anime movie one of the best children’s movie I’ve ever seen. This movie had so many different morals behind it. The first moral I…

The book, Neighbors: the Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland, is written by Jan Tomasz Gross. The book takes place in a small town in Poland called Jedwabne where the Jews were humiliated, tortured, and murdered. On July 10th, 1941, 1,600 of the remaining Jews were burned alive, including women and children. Jan’s compelling book explores the atrocities on how such ordinary men, Polish neighbors, terrorized the Jewish community. He reconstructs the events that led up to the…

depending on where one lives and the relationships an elderly person has with the neighbors around them. The closer someone is, relationships-wise, to their neighbor, the more inclined the neighbor will be on checking on the elderly neighbor. For example, when my grandma was still alive, her next-door neighbors, who she knew for many years, looked out for her and would do kind gestures such as rotate which neighbor mowed her lawn as they knew she lived alone and did not have the energy to do…

another day, not as a day as their own making it different every day. That is exactly what Mei and Satuski did. They lived on a big land did not have much but they had the best time with their imagination. That is “My neighbor Totoro” is one of my favorite films to watch. My Neighbor Totoro might have had no plot, but the storyline was very heartwarming. It made you remember your childhood when you had imaginary friends or animals that would come visit you at the dinner table, came lay in bed…

Japan, 1963, the city of Sayama, Saitama prefecture; a gruesome murder is committed involving two sisters. Japan, 1988, the city of Tokorozawa, Saitama prefecture; the setting of a beloved children’s film starring two sisters. There have been several instances of speculation regarding the movie, many viewers wondering if there were any correlations between the murder case and the movie. Fan theories spread like wildfire through the internet, calling Totoro a ‘God of Death’ and a ‘grim reaper’.…

Part of human nature is taking risks to overcome a conflict. In “Breaking Through Uncertainty-Welcome Adversity” by Jim Mccormick and in “Neighbors” by Lien Chao, both demonstrate how making dangerous hunches can benefit them. In Mccormick’s story, he exhibits how by taking a risk he was able to save his own life and undergo personal growth. At the same time in Chao’s story, the main character, Sally, takes a significant risk, which gains her friends and a new self-confidence. Whilst both…