I wish there were more children's movies that treated their audience with this level of respect and thoughtfullness. I appreciate you giving it the gravity it deserves in your review.
I love how when he is an adult, his eyes are cold and red. But after killing Woe? He gains his pupils back and gains a softer tone, almost as if his innocence and who he was is trying to break free for one last moment. Then he sees, he can never go back, and thus we see him with mainly pupiless eyes once more, just like Woe.
@@Cat_on_watermelon57 If Takashi Yanase was still with us, I’m sure he would. But he didn’t write sequels for his other stand alone s either except for Little Jumbo.
@@Cat_on_watermelon57 not sure how that's possible, considering Chirin *possibly* died, but I was considering making one, albeit a parody and jab at lighter-and-softer DTV sequels. Basically an orphan foal finds him and he decides to raise her in a way that contrasts how Woe raised him.
Considering that Sanrio would later make Aggretsuko, an anime that actually _is_ intended for an older audience, the fact that they made this honestly doesn't surprise me.
Interesting coincidence that this movie came out the very same year than another animated movie about animals confronting the worst of nature: Watership Down. Excellent video.
*Retroactive Recognition* Barbara Goodson is best known as the English voice of Rita Repulsa, Naota Nandaba, and Laharl, respectively. She is the English voice of Chirin as a lamb, this film serves as Barbara Goodson's oldest voice acting and dubbing roles. As the movie progresses, Chirin's voice actually starts sounding like an earlier version of Goodson's Rita voice at times. This film is also one of the earliest voice acting roles of Gregg Berger, who does Chirin as an adult. He would later be known by many as Jecht, Captain Blue, Agent K, Grimlock, Odie, Orson, The Gromble, and Ripto respectively.
Woe is nigh-consistently called 'Woe' in this review, but apparently the translation of his name varies wildly between sources, because the original Japanese "Uoo" can be interpreted as "woe" or "war" or a wolf's howl. I remember reading about this anime on TVTropes, and the page was constantly flip-flopping on how it addressed the wolf.
The reason I think why it's called Ringing Bell in the west instead of Chirin's Bell is because チリン (Chirin) can be interpreted as onomatopoeia for a bell ringing. They could have decided on a title before dubbing. Good video! I really love this movie and I'm so glad that a good review video exists for it now. You should check out バラの花とジョー (The Rose and Joe) it's really good!
The "Baby Mine" scene in Dumbo is also emotionally heart-rending. A story goes about my dad watching it for the first time (he was probably only 7 or 8), and he burst out crying so much during that scene that my grandmother had to take him home because he was inconsolable. The "Baby Mine" scene doesn't deal with a mother's death, but it still dealt with a child separated from its mother, and it's VERY emotionally potent.
Sanrio may have created Hello Kitty, but man they make gorgeous animations. This, A Journey Through Fairyland, The Sea Prince and The Fire Child, Unico are just beautiful to look at...
"You will regret killing the murderer" is a pretty dark message, but it does seem sincere. I recently read Olga Tokarczuk's book, the one with the exceedingly long title and excessive William Blake quotes, that is all about getting retribution for the killings of the hunters in the woods, and it didn't agree with me. This film perfectly formulates an answer to that book - as the protagonist of the book did not regret killing the murderer, it felt very empty and a waste of a writers talent. Thanks for reminding me of Chirin, it was a pleasure listening to the analyses.
I can always count on KB to give a real analysis and deep dive instead of doing the cheep and easy "anime bad" or "this is anime is whhhhhhhhhhaaaaa!?" and this video is proof.
(seeing that Bambi clip) That's okay. Most people forget Fess Parker was in Old Yeller, and that after that dog's death, they treat it as a happy ending because they already have another dog to deal with, literally playing that Best Dog-Gone Dog in the West song at the end. Then again, most people forget to actually watch Old Yeller. ...also, thanks for introducing me to The Mouse and his Child. If Discotek and/or Shout Factory can release it on DVD in the US, that would be nice. Then again, there may be rights issues that could be easily resolved.
Giving away my age here, but the film that made my generation cry was "The Land Befor Time". Guess that what that one has over the other Disney movies is that it tried to ecxplain to kids what death is and how to deal with it.
It didn't make me cry, I was always confused when Little Foot's mom died because the scene was so dark and I couldn't tell that the giant mass on the screen was her. An American Tale did it for me.
It's kind of funny cuz I saw Bell first way before I saw Bambi in my youth and it did help toughen me up. I didn't cry during the movie but I did feel the pain and anguish of the poor lamb just to be feared when he grows up! That lesson set with me more than anything else besides what a wolf did to him!
Don’t you think it was more similar to Anakin Skywalker’s journey? Think of it. They both started out as adorable and innocent, they lose their mothers, the sheep/Jedi have little to do with him (in the sheep’s defense, they were too busy mourning) and Chirin was manipulated by Woe into seeing life through his eyes the same way Palpatine did with Anakin. And then Chirin gets burned, Anakin gets burned and it turns them into the villains we see as adults.
@@puterboy2Perhaps. A key difference, though is that one receives closure at the end of his life and course-corrects even in his old age, while the other is doomed. One can Interpret that Chirin never reconciles with the tragedy of his life. He is doomed to live as his father did, but with the added baggage of his previous actions. He will die alone, and he will die in his sadness and guilt.
tangent: I'm reading sanrio's latest dark subject matter thing, the manga Maimaimaigoen. I never expected to like a 'death game' that mostly features toddlers, but it's really good. EDIT: uhh, apparently it's also been turned into a video game in between the time i started reading until now, haha
Interestingly, this film seems to be the flip side of Sanrio's other dark childrens films, where the characters often sacrifice their own lives for the sake of love (ex. Sea prince and the fire child, Nutracker Fantasy).
Seeing this I hope, absolutely HOPE, you cover Sanrio's stop motion film Nutcracker Fantasy. The film is both gorgeous and absolutely bonkers and I love it.
Traumatised in the 90's by the lion king? In the UK, they re-released all of the old Disney films in cinema (hence why Animaniacs has the bambi scene) we had a double whammy
I knew about Ringing Bell from a youtuber's review, but it was not a shallow "dark" review, it was the follow up of Jack Saint's criticism of Zootipia and the use of animals to convey race metaphores, and in his follow up he brings up Beastars and Ringing Bell as two pretty good exemples of nuance and good use of the topic. Nice to have a full movie review though, your commentary is always insightful !
Such a wonderful analysis of one of my favorite anime films. I felt like many did such a disservice to the deeper connotation of Chirin's Bell since it always felt a lot more than what many took away from it. I'm so happy to see a video that did proper research into the production and it's creator. Actually learned a few things I didnt know before Really well done Also the fact that the English VA for adult Chirin is the same as Cornfed was something I had no idea about but made me smile so stupid
God, just continue making videos! Great fan of your unparalleled Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies documentaries, I would like to see more about the golden age of American animation from you! Greetings from Greece.
Man, I didn’t know Sanrio of companies has a movie like! This is amazing yet sad and tragic at the same time! I wonder if other Sanrio movies are like too
Great video!! Thank you for inspiring me on my own animation work through showing me so many different perspectives in the art form. So glad I discovered your channel!!
I'd add for something to be truly shocking, there has to be contrast and self-recognition. It is so easy to make it us and them, but deep down, you know.
I was confused why everyone was freaked out by watching Ringing Bell only to realize all this time I've been confusing/mixing up Ringing Bell with Arashi no Yoru ni for years now.
I found this at anime Boston. Looking at the cover, I could never had guessed it was THIS kind of movie. Also, the art style reminds me of Lambert the Sheepish Lion. Also by Disney.
I like this story a lot! Hell I think a continuation can happen or some sort of Spiritual follow-up where Chirin desires purpose after losing all sense of his own existence! Only to be drawn in by brigands that want to use him for his power.
Thanks for the review. I actually saw this as a kid, on rented videotape in the 80's. And I wasn't ready. It was the first show I watched that didn't have a happy ending. I still can't enjoy it as an adult, though intellectually I recognize its merits.
And it's people like you I absolutely can't stand. People who adamantly refuse to be challenged by media, and need everything to be safe, comforting and easily digestable to you. I despise people who see all media as their comfort blanket this way. To simply "intellectually recognize it's merits" is not even remotely good enough when someone like you is sitting here claiming to "get it" and "respect it" and "understand it" from the hypocritical outlook of your sheltered safety bubble. You don't get to comment on how much you respect and understand the grass on the other side of the fence without ever jumping over and walking on it for yourself.
I saw Mouse and his Child seperately on VHS long before I ever experienced Ringing Bell, which I'm not sure ever had a UK release. The trippy sequences and incredibly violent scenes had a bit of an impact - it's wild to think these films were shown together considering years later Ghibli would do a similar thing with Grave and Totoro and at least had a very wholesome film as a chaser. This is 2 heavy films together. Of what I recall seeing of the book, it leans harder into Chirin's quest being an overall negative and more a commentary on Japanese Imperialism and how war takes otherwise innocent people and turns them into merciless solders. You see this still sort of in the film with Chirin declaring he doesn't care about his life long as he can have his revenge but the film ends up being a bit less black and white about it. I personally like the movie better for the same reasons identified here. Chirin's desire to be strong is sort of admirable in that he wants to fight his fate and be proactive about it, not just wait for the inevitable to eventually happen. But the result of staying true to his original goal costs him everything, there's no place he belongs and he can't just go back to being a simple sheep now the wolf is gone.
Full Metal Jacket should have been just the characters going through basic training and showing the absolute depravity of military life at the time where restrictions were much looser and mental health wasn't a consideration
I can just tell that KB jammed a plot recap of the rest of _Bambi_ into his sentence at 2:23, knowing that half his audience would go, "huh??? That happens in the movie?"
@@SlapstickGenius23 I'm only aware of Ginga Densetsu Weed (unless you're talking manga, I'm vaguely aware that the creator was almost forced by the audience to draw animals exclusively for the remainder of the career), but I'm nowhere near nostalgic about it as I am for GNG - it was the very first anime I have ever seen in my life, so it holds a special place in my heart :) I was 7, some kid brought a VHS to school and my class watched it during recess in our school's common room. It was an episode in which Gin got his scar, so the teacher rushed to turn it off after seeing all the blood :D It was 1991, no internet, basically no anime fanbase in Poland yet - It took me 30 years to track the series down and it didn't disappoint! The only thing I remembered was "a dog being mauled by a bear" so my first search attempts weren't that successfull ;p
Before you gavee summary I was honestly dreading this almost expecting something along the lines of watership down that I still regret watching even now. thanks for introducing this to me effed up as it was it was a cool anime all the same and I appreciate the lesson it gave traumatic events aside.
I’m afraid I have to disagree with you on the Bambi comparison, Chirin is, in a retrospective sense more similar to Anakin Skywalker or Eren Yeager. Other similarities I see in him are Arya Stark, Elphaba from Wicked, Thorfinn from the Vinland Saga, Ken Amada from Persona 3 and even Galen Marek from The Force Unleashed. Why? Because they turned to the dark side after losing their loved ones. In the case of Thorfinn and Starkiller, they were trained under the same people who killed their parents, just like Chirin. I would also like to add that there are extended versions of Ringing Bell that end with a mother sheep telling her lambs that if they cry Chirin will take them away and kill them.
To me the main message here is about turning into the monster you originally wanted to defeat, especially with Yanases war experiences as the background. Chirin felt righteous when he set out to avenge his mother. Like nature was unfair and cruel and so he wants to bring justive to the one who killed his mom. Just to see in the faces of the other sheep in the end that they feared him just as much as the wolf. He became what he wanted to destroy.
I found a dvd for this anime once with communication by an ANN worker on it. I could buy it at the time, but i curious if you have this copy of the film
24:31 You gotta be kidding. They sound nothing alike! The pig sounds like a pal pitched Eeyore, while Chirin actually puts tones and emotions to his feelings. Clearly different actors.
"Ringing Bell isn't fascist." I mean, the original writer of the story admitted as such: it's a parallel to the experience of WW2 soldiers, and commentary about it being ultimately a tragedy.
I remember I came upon this movie completely by accident at a thrift store and even though I loved it I thought it was really dark I was crying by the end of it I would throw like a whole box of tissues and when I saw it I was in my late 30s
Hello KaiserBeamz! My grandmother had a place on an island. Nothing to boast of. You could walk along it in an hour. But still, it was - it was a paradise for us. One summer, we went for a visit and discovered the place had been infested with rats. They'd come on a fishing boat and gorged themselves on coconut. So how do you get rats off an island, hmm? My grandmother showed me. We buried an oil drum and hinged the lid. Then we wired coconut to the lid as bait, and the rats would come for the coconut, and they would fall into the drum. And after a month, you've trapped all the rats. But what did you do then? Throw the drum into the ocean? Burn it? No. You just leave it. And they begin to get hungry, and one by one they will start eating each other, until there are only two left. The two survivors. And then what - do you kill them? No. You take them and release them into the trees. But now they don't eat coconut anymore. Now they only eat rat. You have changed their nature. The two survivors.
Honestly, considering how corpos like Disney nowadays are trying to dumb down things for kids, I wish more of these types of movies come back. Animation could be used to tell powerful messages to kids that are essential in growing up. It's not a genre, it's a medium. Thank you for this video, Kaiser.
To be fair, I think you are also specifically guilty of a lot of other annoying youtuber traits that many cringy copycats endlessly recycle and regurgitate when trying to copy the format of your content. So i'm really not sure how much room you have to be complaining.
I do suck at fighting games but somehow now I wanna see a character inspired by Unico and Chirin in Them's Fightin' Herds now. Heck Woe should be added to that game too!!!
I wish there were more children's movies that treated their audience with this level of respect and thoughtfullness. I appreciate you giving it the gravity it deserves in your review.
I think the closest that there is would be Heartcatch Pretty Cure, though it’s not movie.
You’re not looking hard enough.
what is the name of the song in the intro kyoto video
Anything with don bluth will fill that need
I love how when he is an adult, his eyes are cold and red. But after killing Woe? He gains his pupils back and gains a softer tone, almost as if his innocence and who he was is trying to break free for one last moment. Then he sees, he can never go back, and thus we see him with mainly pupiless eyes once more, just like Woe.
Then I guess Chirin became a Sith apprentice, it’s the only logical explanation to me.
I wish there was a sequel
@@Cat_on_watermelon57 If Takashi Yanase was still with us, I’m sure he would. But he didn’t write sequels for his other stand alone s either except for Little Jumbo.
@@Cat_on_watermelon57 not sure how that's possible, considering Chirin *possibly* died, but I was considering making one, albeit a parody and jab at lighter-and-softer DTV sequels. Basically an orphan foal finds him and he decides to raise her in a way that contrasts how Woe raised him.
Considering that Sanrio would later make Aggretsuko, an anime that actually _is_ intended for an older audience, the fact that they made this honestly doesn't surprise me.
Also on Anpanman: If it weren't for him, we wouldn't have One-Punch Man (which is actually a pun of the OG red bean bun guy).
Interesting coincidence that this movie came out the very same year than another animated movie about animals confronting the worst of nature: Watership Down. Excellent video.
*Retroactive Recognition*
Barbara Goodson is best known as the English voice of Rita Repulsa, Naota Nandaba, and Laharl, respectively. She is the English voice of Chirin as a lamb, this film serves as Barbara Goodson's oldest voice acting and dubbing roles. As the movie progresses, Chirin's voice actually starts sounding like an earlier version of Goodson's Rita voice at times.
This film is also one of the earliest voice acting roles of Gregg Berger, who does Chirin as an adult. He would later be known by many as Jecht, Captain Blue, Agent K, Grimlock, Odie, Orson, The Gromble, and Ripto respectively.
And Eeyore. Ron Gans the narrator also voiced Eeyore in Welcome to Pooh Corner.
In the clip of young Chirin in English, she sounded like Calumon from Digimon Tamers.
@@lainiwakura1776 Gregg Berger voiced Kōji in the bastardised US English dub of Mazinger Z (Tranzor Z) before he voiced Garfield’s doggy foil, Odie.
Woe is nigh-consistently called 'Woe' in this review, but apparently the translation of his name varies wildly between sources, because the original Japanese "Uoo" can be interpreted as "woe" or "war" or a wolf's howl. I remember reading about this anime on TVTropes, and the page was constantly flip-flopping on how it addressed the wolf.
The reason I think why it's called Ringing Bell in the west instead of Chirin's Bell is because チリン (Chirin) can be interpreted as onomatopoeia for a bell ringing. They could have decided on a title before dubbing. Good video! I really love this movie and I'm so glad that a good review video exists for it now. You should check out バラの花とジョー (The Rose and Joe) it's really good!
I think they should give the film a 4K remaster.
Never heard of this one! Off for a search!
The "Baby Mine" scene in Dumbo is also emotionally heart-rending. A story goes about my dad watching it for the first time (he was probably only 7 or 8), and he burst out crying so much during that scene that my grandmother had to take him home because he was inconsolable. The "Baby Mine" scene doesn't deal with a mother's death, but it still dealt with a child separated from its mother, and it's VERY emotionally potent.
Which is why I compare Ringing Bell with Anakin, Thorfinn and other stories that are not Disney or DreamWorks.
I really appreciate that commentary on RUclips video thumbnails. I don't think they'll age that well.
Sanrio may have created Hello Kitty, but man they make gorgeous animations. This, A Journey Through Fairyland, The Sea Prince and The Fire Child, Unico are just beautiful to look at...
Thanks for the Fist of the Northstar connection. Now I can't stop thinking of Woe looking at Chirin saying "You are already a wolf."
“Omae wa mou õkami da.”
"You will regret killing the murderer" is a pretty dark message, but it does seem sincere. I recently read Olga Tokarczuk's book, the one with the exceedingly long title and excessive William Blake quotes, that is all about getting retribution for the killings of the hunters in the woods, and it didn't agree with me. This film perfectly formulates an answer to that book - as the protagonist of the book did not regret killing the murderer, it felt very empty and a waste of a writers talent. Thanks for reminding me of Chirin, it was a pleasure listening to the analyses.
I can always count on KB to give a real analysis and deep dive instead of doing the cheep and easy "anime bad" or "this is anime is whhhhhhhhhhaaaaa!?" and this video is proof.
Nonetheless, there are other versions of Chirin no Suzu that Kaiser overlooked.
The fact that Chiren's Bell is a film that treats an audience like they can handle the themes with sincerity.
(seeing that Bambi clip) That's okay. Most people forget Fess Parker was in Old Yeller, and that after that dog's death, they treat it as a happy ending because they already have another dog to deal with, literally playing that Best Dog-Gone Dog in the West song at the end. Then again, most people forget to actually watch Old Yeller.
...also, thanks for introducing me to The Mouse and his Child. If Discotek and/or Shout Factory can release it on DVD in the US, that would be nice. Then again, there may be rights issues that could be easily resolved.
Giving away my age here, but the film that made my generation cry was "The Land Befor Time". Guess that what that one has over the other Disney movies is that it tried to ecxplain to kids what death is and how to deal with it.
Not as sad as when that brachiosaurus died in Jurassic World?
It didn't make me cry, I was always confused when Little Foot's mom died because the scene was so dark and I couldn't tell that the giant mass on the screen was her. An American Tale did it for me.
@@lainiwakura1776 And what about when Anakin’s mom died. I mean, his story and Chirin's are very much alike.
In addition to Cornfed Pig, Greg Berger also voiced Odie from 'Garfield', and Grimlock from 'Transformers'.
And Orson, the pig on the U.S. Acres segments of Garfield & Friends.
Give us Fist of the North Star Bambi
It's kind of funny cuz I saw Bell first way before I saw Bambi in my youth and it did help toughen me up. I didn't cry during the movie but I did feel the pain and anguish of the poor lamb just to be feared when he grows up! That lesson set with me more than anything else besides what a wolf did to him!
Don’t you think it was more similar to Anakin Skywalker’s journey? Think of it. They both started out as adorable and innocent, they lose their mothers, the sheep/Jedi have little to do with him (in the sheep’s defense, they were too busy mourning) and Chirin was manipulated by Woe into seeing life through his eyes the same way Palpatine did with Anakin. And then Chirin gets burned, Anakin gets burned and it turns them into the villains we see as adults.
@@puterboy2Perhaps.
A key difference, though is that one receives closure at the end of his life and course-corrects even in his old age, while the other is doomed.
One can Interpret that Chirin never reconciles with the tragedy of his life. He is doomed to live as his father did, but with the added baggage of his previous actions. He will die alone, and he will die in his sadness and guilt.
@@extraful1 At least he will be in a better place with his mom again.
basically Ringing Bell should have been the blueprint for Star Wars Episode 1 -3. Lucas kind of dropped the ball lol
tangent: I'm reading sanrio's latest dark subject matter thing, the manga Maimaimaigoen. I never expected to like a 'death game' that mostly features toddlers, but it's really good.
EDIT: uhh, apparently it's also been turned into a video game in between the time i started reading until now, haha
"How can this little lamb... be a student of the NORTH STAR?!?!
Interestingly, this film seems to be the flip side of Sanrio's other dark childrens films, where the characters often sacrifice their own lives for the sake of love (ex. Sea prince and the fire child, Nutracker Fantasy).
Seeing this I hope, absolutely HOPE, you cover Sanrio's stop motion film Nutcracker Fantasy. The film is both gorgeous and absolutely bonkers and I love it.
Traumatised in the 90's by the lion king? In the UK, they re-released all of the old Disney films in cinema (hence why Animaniacs has the bambi scene) we had a double whammy
3:05 the answer to that question is the American Dad episode where Steve teaches the forest animals how to fight back.
I was not expecting a reference to The Mouse and His Child here. That was one of the old childhood films that had a big effect on me.
I knew about Ringing Bell from a youtuber's review, but it was not a shallow "dark" review, it was the follow up of Jack Saint's criticism of Zootipia and the use of animals to convey race metaphores, and in his follow up he brings up Beastars and Ringing Bell as two pretty good exemples of nuance and good use of the topic.
Nice to have a full movie review though, your commentary is always insightful !
Core memory of seeing the Mouse and His Child unlocked..
Such a wonderful analysis of one of my favorite anime films. I felt like many did such a disservice to the deeper connotation of Chirin's Bell since it always felt a lot more than what many took away from it.
I'm so happy to see a video that did proper research into the production and it's creator. Actually learned a few things I didnt know before
Really well done
Also the fact that the English VA for adult Chirin is the same as Cornfed was something I had no idea about but made me smile so stupid
God, just continue making videos!
Great fan of your unparalleled Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies documentaries, I would like to see more about the golden age of American animation from you!
Greetings from Greece.
I decide to watch this with my daughter for the first time just last night and then KB posts a wonderful review of it a day later. Good times.
Man, I didn’t know Sanrio of companies has a movie like! This is amazing yet sad and tragic at the same time! I wonder if other Sanrio movies are like too
Thank you thank you thank you. This is THE best discussion on one of my favorite movies and the only one that GETS what it's about.
Here was always my question for this movie: where was the shepherd? The sheep just built a shed by themselves? They got a trash ass shepherd
I never knew about this anime before, but damn, this is good stuff! Thanks for your amazing reviews, you always do a top notch job.
Great video!! Thank you for inspiring me on my own animation work through showing me so many different perspectives in the art form.
So glad I discovered your channel!!
You forgot to mention one thing about Anpanman-he actually inspired One-Punch Man (Wanpanman.)
He also forgot to mention that there are other retelling of Chirin no Suzu.
I'd add for something to be truly shocking, there has to be contrast and self-recognition. It is so easy to make it us and them, but deep down, you know.
I was confused why everyone was freaked out by watching Ringing Bell only to realize all this time I've been confusing/mixing up Ringing Bell with Arashi no Yoru ni for years now.
Great review video Kaiser oh i watched Bambi when i was young and i watched Ringing Bell when i was in high school
10:04 this part is funny, but also badass
This has to be one of your best scripts. Incredible work my friend.
Was not expecting that Nia cameo, but it's certainly welcomed.
I found this at anime Boston. Looking at the cover, I could never had guessed it was THIS kind of movie. Also, the art style reminds me of Lambert the Sheepish Lion. Also by Disney.
I love the intelligent and well thought takes!
I like this story a lot! Hell I think a continuation can happen or some sort of Spiritual follow-up where Chirin desires purpose after losing all sense of his own existence! Only to be drawn in by brigands that want to use him for his power.
Thanks for the review. I actually saw this as a kid, on rented videotape in the 80's. And I wasn't ready. It was the first show I watched that didn't have a happy ending. I still can't enjoy it as an adult, though intellectually I recognize its merits.
And it's people like you I absolutely can't stand. People who adamantly refuse to be challenged by media, and need everything to be safe, comforting and easily digestable to you. I despise people who see all media as their comfort blanket this way. To simply "intellectually recognize it's merits" is not even remotely good enough when someone like you is sitting here claiming to "get it" and "respect it" and "understand it" from the hypocritical outlook of your sheltered safety bubble. You don't get to comment on how much you respect and understand the grass on the other side of the fence without ever jumping over and walking on it for yourself.
I can't believe my notifs got THIS messed up. Oh well, time to watch!
So basically this movie is Bambi: The Joker Arc
I saw Mouse and his Child seperately on VHS long before I ever experienced Ringing Bell, which I'm not sure ever had a UK release. The trippy sequences and incredibly violent scenes had a bit of an impact - it's wild to think these films were shown together considering years later Ghibli would do a similar thing with Grave and Totoro and at least had a very wholesome film as a chaser. This is 2 heavy films together.
Of what I recall seeing of the book, it leans harder into Chirin's quest being an overall negative and more a commentary on Japanese Imperialism and how war takes otherwise innocent people and turns them into merciless solders. You see this still sort of in the film with Chirin declaring he doesn't care about his life long as he can have his revenge but the film ends up being a bit less black and white about it. I personally like the movie better for the same reasons identified here. Chirin's desire to be strong is sort of admirable in that he wants to fight his fate and be proactive about it, not just wait for the inevitable to eventually happen. But the result of staying true to his original goal costs him everything, there's no place he belongs and he can't just go back to being a simple sheep now the wolf is gone.
Full Metal Jacket should have been just the characters going through basic training and showing the absolute depravity of military life at the time where restrictions were much looser and mental health wasn't a consideration
Because the ending of killing a child struck cold where there was no redemption, no means of justification, just a final period.
It shows that even the makers of hello kitty are very versatile and at what they do
I did not expect Appanman to be in this video. I watched that series a bit back then.
I can just tell that KB jammed a plot recap of the rest of _Bambi_ into his sentence at 2:23, knowing that half his audience would go, "huh??? That happens in the movie?"
Chirin the apprentice must one day kill his master? That's how the Sith work funnily enough.
That depends, is Chirin more like Vader, Starkiller or Revan?
The sheep 🐑 design is pretty similar to the Disney short Lambert the Sheepish Lion 🦁
Dayumm, KB, you always deliver. Any chance for a Ginga Nagareboshi Gin / Silver Fang video at any point?
Ooh, Ginga Nagareboshi Gin has a couple of lengthy prequels and sequels. They’re just as dark if not darker.
@@SlapstickGenius23 I'm only aware of Ginga Densetsu Weed (unless you're talking manga, I'm vaguely aware that the creator was almost forced by the audience to draw animals exclusively for the remainder of the career), but I'm nowhere near nostalgic about it as I am for GNG - it was the very first anime I have ever seen in my life, so it holds a special place in my heart :)
I was 7, some kid brought a VHS to school and my class watched it during recess in our school's common room. It was an episode in which Gin got his scar, so the teacher rushed to turn it off after seeing all the blood :D It was 1991, no internet, basically no anime fanbase in Poland yet - It took me 30 years to track the series down and it didn't disappoint! The only thing I remembered was "a dog being mauled by a bear" so my first search attempts weren't that successfull ;p
Before you gavee summary I was honestly dreading this almost expecting something along the lines of watership down that I still regret watching even now. thanks for introducing this to me effed up as it was it was a cool anime all the same and I appreciate the lesson it gave traumatic events aside.
Of course it's not Watership Down, it's not even the same plot. It's more like the Star Wars prequels.
I’m afraid I have to disagree with you on the Bambi comparison, Chirin is, in a retrospective sense more similar to Anakin Skywalker or Eren Yeager. Other similarities I see in him are Arya Stark, Elphaba from Wicked, Thorfinn from the Vinland Saga, Ken Amada from Persona 3 and even Galen Marek from The Force Unleashed. Why? Because they turned to the dark side after losing their loved ones. In the case of Thorfinn and Starkiller, they were trained under the same people who killed their parents, just like Chirin.
I would also like to add that there are extended versions of Ringing Bell that end with a mother sheep telling her lambs that if they cry Chirin will take them away and kill them.
To me the main message here is about turning into the monster you originally wanted to defeat, especially with Yanases war experiences as the background. Chirin felt righteous when he set out to avenge his mother. Like nature was unfair and cruel and so he wants to bring justive to the one who killed his mom. Just to see in the faces of the other sheep in the end that they feared him just as much as the wolf. He became what he wanted to destroy.
Glad to see you cover this film. This was better than I expected.
I found a dvd for this anime once with communication by an ANN worker on it. I could buy it at the time, but i curious if you have this copy of the film
I really enjoyed this video! Nicely done!
24:31
You gotta be kidding. They sound nothing alike! The pig sounds like a pal pitched Eeyore, while Chirin actually puts tones and emotions to his feelings. Clearly different actors.
dude just woke up one day and chose to burninate Steve's Reviews
And deserved, too.
I cried and cried when I saw this as a kid. I was the cutest little lamb dad ending
Are going to do an episode on _The Great Mission To Rescue Princess Peach_ anytime soon?
"Ringing Bell isn't fascist."
I mean, the original writer of the story admitted as such: it's a parallel to the experience of WW2 soldiers, and commentary about it being ultimately a tragedy.
Okay. The Souther joke about killed me from laughter.
I remember this anime, I remember seeing a review of this by the by Bobsheaux and The Stupid Team :)
This continues to be my favorite anime channel. Great work!
He saved his people become the strongest warrior but lost himself in the process
I remember I came upon this movie completely by accident at a thrift store and even though I loved it I thought it was really dark I was crying by the end of it I would throw like a whole box of tissues and when I saw it I was in my late 30s
Did you find it similar to Anakin’s story or Thorfinn’s?
Hello KaiserBeamz!
My grandmother had a place on an island. Nothing to boast of. You could walk along it in an hour. But still, it was - it was a paradise for us. One summer, we went for a visit and discovered the place had been infested with rats. They'd come on a fishing boat and gorged themselves on coconut. So how do you get rats off an island, hmm? My grandmother showed me. We buried an oil drum and hinged the lid. Then we wired coconut to the lid as bait, and the rats would come for the coconut, and they would fall into the drum. And after a month, you've trapped all the rats. But what did you do then? Throw the drum into the ocean? Burn it? No. You just leave it. And they begin to get hungry, and one by one they will start eating each other, until there are only two left. The two survivors. And then what - do you kill them? No. You take them and release them into the trees. But now they don't eat coconut anymore. Now they only eat rat. You have changed their nature. The two survivors.
Chirin killed his own sensei woe that’s some actually kinda dark. Actually it’s true I seen the movie.
First arc of Vineland Saga is basically this
So was Star Wars Episode II (when Anakin’s mom died) and Episode III (when he becomes Vader).
24:17 Berger. Not Burger. Sorry to be "that guy", but we're talking about the voice of The Pain in Metal Gear Solid 3.
Its always good day when you upload!❤
Wow... I wonder if the sheep episode of the Kirby anime was inspired from this movie for that monster of the day in that show
Love this analytical and historical take on this film.
Honestly, considering how corpos like Disney nowadays are trying to dumb down things for kids, I wish more of these types of movies come back. Animation could be used to tell powerful messages to kids that are essential in growing up. It's not a genre, it's a medium. Thank you for this video, Kaiser.
Some of them still do, you’re just not looking hard enough. Sadly, I think applies more to independent filmmaking.
I also have to say Daisy a hen in the wild kind of up there with this movie if you like this one you should probably check that one out
"Always two there are."
This movie is even more metal than Aggretsuko
6:02 Do the same for me please. Those thumbnails are everywhere and make me want to leave the website forever.
To be fair, I think you are also specifically guilty of a lot of other annoying youtuber traits that many cringy copycats endlessly recycle and regurgitate when trying to copy the format of your content. So i'm really not sure how much room you have to be complaining.
I always know Greg Burger best as Grimlock in Transformers.
I do suck at fighting games but somehow now I wanna see a character inspired by Unico and Chirin in Them's Fightin' Herds now. Heck Woe should be added to that game too!!!
I am still surprised that this dub was one of Gregg Berger's first roles in animation. Then again, many do have their start in anime dubs.
Bryan Cranston
@@dwainsimmons3447 That's one example.
This is Sanrio's Bambi along with Unico, witch I enjoy that film a lot.
Chirin is not Bambi, he’s Anakin.
Chirin is saint seiyaa
What’s the music for the part about the origins of Sanrio?
hey dude, when are talking about the slayers ovas and the second half of the movies?
He does one Slayers video per year
@@the-NightStar I’m just wondering when tho
I never actually watched Bambi so I didn’t there was more after his mom’s death
How did his bell that he wore as a baby still fit him as an adult?
Elastic material.
Artistic liberty
This film reminded me strangely of Gangs of New York.
How? If anything it reminded me more of Anakin Skywalker’s character arc in the Star Wars movies.
Wait.. Bambi gets older???
No, he became a Sith Lord.
Whats the name of the song used in the last chapter
Ringing bell.
Ringing. Bell.
Yeah. You had to tackle this.
Saw this before i turned ten. Glad i did.
Cute things and dark stories.
Only in anime (and Disney).
And Don Bluth movies ( at least his 4 movies)