-Loved going to amusement park/fairground at night, brought home that heart-shaped car fragrance, handsome Pikachu camera bag
-Loved visiting Carrefour and ate ice-cream there once in a while, bought a cute throw pillow with bear pattern and named it "Big Fat"
Kindergarten & Lower primary school
House
-Had a best friend who's the younger son of a neighbor, whom i loved to hang out with everyday and later went to kindergarten with, we were thick as thieves
-💙 to collect Pokemon and Digimon cards and coloring books, so did that best friend
-💙 to play with some stuffed animals (Used them to play doctors and patients, using compasses as syringes with needles and watercolor paints as medical syrups etc.) near mom's sewing machine table
-Used two racks in mom's little workroom as two apartment buildings for stuffed animals to inhabit
-Had a thermocol box in mom's workroom which we used to keep a huge jumble of books and papers
-💙 watching TV in the morning before going off to school at noon
-Easily frightened out of my wits by some notoriously scary ghost movies of Japan, HK and Thailand, e.g. Dark Water (2002), Nang Nak (1999), Rahtree: Flower of the Night (2003), The Eye (2002), Encounters of the Spooky Kind(1980) etc. which i've long grown out of and think they're dopey and time-wasting in retrospect
-Sometimes i did my homework at mom's sewing machine table or her makeup desk
-💙 to list all favorite songs and artists in a notebook, was extremely meticulous about the handwriting
-💙 to listen to MyFM on a big radio and on mini pocket radio
-💙 to sing along to Jay Chou's songs on vcd
-Mom made me some amorphous rag dolls with her sewing machine
-💙 to collect stationery that were pleasing
-💙 drinking Horlicks
-💙 to play with a samurai toy sword that i demanded mom buy for me when we were in town. Had a beautiful toy keris with a golden scabbard.
-Procured some materials from the kitchen (bananas, a little cooking oil, sesame oil, soysauce, vinegar, sugar, salt, rice, pandan leaves, and few other condiments) on an evening of Chinese New Year's Eve, to put on a fake cooking show called "Spring is in town" in the balcony, and pretended to cook a few inedible dishes, with ice-cream sticks as turners
-💙 to eat tumeric glutinous rice with curry chicken (often received in a beautiful Chinese-themed gift box whenever there's newborn Chinese baby that mom knew reaching one-month old /when there's a Chinese equivalent of obon festival or religious jollification being held in an elbowroom at the anterior of our neighborhood[where there's a little shrine area for Na Tuk Kong and Tua Pek Kong {local guardian deities worshiped by Chinese folks }, next to a quarters which was my kindergarten for half a year])
-Threw together a lip-sync concert with the help of sis one afternoon when mom was out, using stuffed animals as the singers performing on the dining table, playing loud music on tv, and using those little alien toy soldiers as security guards as well as the audience
Outside
-💙 to go to local Getai (loud nighttime outdoor stage performance) and eat some street food, brought home glow sticks
-💙 making weekend visits to grandma's house and spending some
time with a cousin, watching vcds for instance ghost movies and albums
of favorite artists
-Stayed an entire day (or 2, not sure) at grandma's place, went walking
and grocery shopping with her on a sunny morning and watched cousin
Joan's vcds on the couch all day
- went fishing with father and didn't catch any fish fortunately, enjoyed the scenery
-💙 to play in the neighborhood playground on weekends, unafraid of being watched by people
-Mom used to take me to a local grocery store to buy food every morning on school days, where i used to buy cheap little erasers (with images printed on them) from; mom used to buy me kuih-muih from a stall outside the store
-💙
to go to a beautiful neighborhood temple (on special occasions) where
there's a porch swing by an unfathomable old well and a canteen where we
could eat simple vegan food
-💙 to buy ice-cream from ice-cream carts that came to the neighborhood every week
-One time i had severe fever that persisted for almost a week and i had to be in bed all day and mom bought me a huge jar of my fav peanut cookies for me to snack whenever i wanted
-Went around the apartment building with mom peddling school uniforms from door to door til almost 9p.m for a day, then went home and heard Crazy Frog
-💙 to go to a neighbor(mom's friend)'s house with an orange door,
who came to stay in that house on holidays; it's spick and span,
it had some beautiful collectibles on display; it's now been sold
-Everytime i had fever, mom took me to a clinic in town, bought me some
umeboshi in the grocery store next door(to make it easier for me to
swallow the pills), took me to eat vermicelli soup later, (sometimes
took me to a big Chinese medicine store called RenAn), and play in a
small playground nearby before going home
-Went to a restaurant in town one night to eat Lol-lok (skewered foods
with hot pot) and bubur chacha, and um, witnessed a baby pooping in its
diaper, lost all appetite
-Went to a beautiful bird park and a Parkson Mall (in Penang Island) in an older cousin's car (where she bought us electronic wrist watches)on a Sunday after going to a St. Anne's Church feast day (where i bought 2 cute mini piggybanks and a handmade muppet duck)
School
-On the first day of school, i had pisang goreng (fried bananas) in my lunch box, prepared by mom
-Received a birthday cake with the face of Mickey Mouse from the neighborhood kindergarten i attended, happy as a lark
-Brought a platter of agar-agar to the kindergarten's celebration party of children's day, later brought a jar of jelly to the elementary school's version of the party
-Was told i was good at drawing mountains in 1st grade, helped a few classmate with that
-Liked 2 student magazines namely "BaoBao(Baby) Science","3M画报" and a student's corner section called "瓜瓜乐园Garden of Gourds" in Guangming Newspaper.
Upper primary school
House
-Infatuated with Chinese wuxia superheroes dressed in ancient costumes, due to the influence of several HK/China tv series of this theme at the time, such as Wind&Cloud or few other awesome-sounding ones based on JinYong's novels, i was specifically captivated by the spectacular and colorful 3D power blast and the impacts it had on a setting. Used stuffed animals as those heroes and made them battle against each other in occasional wulin fighting tournaments(i still have some writings i made at the time documenting this exacting yet exciting, off-the-wall ocd pastime). And sometimes teamed them up(like Justice League) to fight for a purpose(like against an archenemy[a young lady possessed by the power of a bellicose magic ring/ an iron dragon] or something that made sense to me.
-DIY and self-directed long-running series of shows based on shows and movies watched on Tv and fiction stories read in books, with stuffed animals as actors(all voiced by myself), with over 50 scripted shows staged in the living room, with matching costumes & accessories, occasional make-up using felt-tip pens, and limited props(sometimes dining table had to be moved into a room, and chairs were decorated as sedan chairs, showy curtain or bedsheet were laid on the floor to create the ambience of a palace), and tons of marvellously-choreographed fight scenes, this went on for almost 5 years(not joking), shows adapted are referenced somewhere on this blog(i was in a state of tyrannical insanity for a long long time). And it really took a considerable amount of elbow grease to do all that.
-Was a speed transcriber of the script of certain shows/movies i watched on TV(fact)
-Used to make a botch of my Chinese calligraphy homework in the beginning, later I learned a trick
-Was an avid armchair traveler (i collected reading meterials, watched tv programs, and extracted contents from newspapers that were about traveling)
-Witnessed a totally hammered neighbor fall down from his balcony, landed on a car and damaged it, and created a huge scene
-💙 Aloe vera, Desmodium caudatum, cacti that we planted on the balcony
-💙 to eat raisins when hitting the books
-Obsessed about newspaper-clipping (using knife, chopping board, rulers, and checkered notebook)
-I typed really fast on old Nokia cellphone
-💙 to eat the mangos planted and delivered to us by uncle Eng
-💙 to eat egg tarts or cake roll for breakfast before going off to school
-Had a winsome Doraemon alarm clock that used to wake us up every morning, saying "Time to Rise and Shine" in Mandarin
Outside
-Had a penchant for cakes made by "Honey Bakery", sold in fractions
-Once witnessed a super bright meteor sailing across the sky when waiting for school van to arrive at the neighborhood crossroad/traffic island early morning and the moment it fell behind the distant horizon the entire night sky lit up for a 2 seconds like daytime. One time almost got mugged by a bad hombre
-Witnessed a big snake being captured which was spotted in the drain, it made my flesh crawl
-Went to a hotpot restaurant with thatched atap roof one evening with uncle and grandma(it was likely grandma's birthday that day)
-Father took me to a place next to a national elementary school to eat the best Javanese noodles and most unstinting ais kacang. Later we went to a car repair shop to change a tyre
- Mother used to take me to one pediatrician whenever I got sick, and we would then go to a little playground near there to play a little bit
-Went to Summit Plaza in town one morning and delighted to see there's a China's folk arts exhibition being held in the main hall. Bought a sugar scuplted mouse figure from one of the artists, intending to keep it in my cabinet, but soon realized that it's starting to shrink and shrivel
-💙 to bring a few books out to study on a bench for more than an
hour in the early evening, and stroll in the neighborhood sometimes
-Went to aunt's housewarming party one night with grandma, it's a big
double-storey house in a neighborhood with very few residents, she's now
moved to another house
-💙 KFC (now only its french fries and mashed potatoes)
-Used to go to pasar malam(night market) near my elementary school every Sunday and a proximate Wonderful mall
-Went on road trips to visit relatives in Uncle Eng's car, usually on Sunday. Loved to go to visit an elderly uncle who resided in a costly 20s-storey condo(with his second wife) in a place called Gelugor in Penang Island, where there were huge swimming pools, an economy rice restaurant, and a statue(possibly Hercules) in the lobby. we paid a visit to that uncle's first wife who was terminally ill and saw a huge chaos of computers in their living room, because their son was a computer technician.
-Used to go to a pasar(wet market) on sunday mornings with father.
-Used to 💙 to eat po chai fan (pot rice with chicken) at a restaurant near my school on Saturday (when father came pick me up) after attending my co-curricular activity.
-Father took me to tour around the depths of a small town that's conterminous with our neighborhood (where there's a secondary school at the end of the road) on his motorcycle, one afternoon (after it rained) after i finished my English homework
-Got my national ID card made at a grand stately government building, then went to Carrefour and bought Princess Mononoke vcd
School
-Nicknamed "S brother" by good friends made on school van, which means "that guy from class S", which is kind and flattering since class S was the first class in school
-Got hooked on BinBin rice crackers and mochi, always bought some after school
-💙 to play a simple computer game called Dogz(raising a digtital dog on desktop) on school computer
-Once had a tour around the school district, including going to local malls like Meike and Wonderful with good friends on a Saturday after attending extracurricular activities (my involvement was as a drummer in orchestra, hated it, partly because of the teacher in charge who's an obese woman who fawned over certain rich kids at every turn); we all hated the school van driver with a passion, who's an oppressive haggish toxic human being
-Loathed some toxic individuals at school, including that obese woman, a squalid thuggish female bully(calling a spade a spade), and an English language teacher who brown-nosed wealthy privileged classmates, all were Chinese-Malaysian people
-💙 some student magazines such as "3M报", "Digital Kids", "Little Professor", "Little Partner","Disney Monthly", "Brother and Sister哥妹俩"
-Forgot to bring stationery to school on the first day of the national UPSR test
-Went on a memorable graduation trip to Taiping in the state of Perak (visited zoo, museum, lake, ancient architecture)
Gliese
581 c, a potentially Earth-like extrasolar planet habitable for life,
is discovered in the constellation Libra
J.
K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is released and sells
over 11 million copies in the first 24 hours
Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, is announced as Time magazine's 2007 Person of the Year
-Achieved straigt As UPSR result, and received the opportunity to pursue secondary education in one of the the most prestigious secondary schools in all of Northern Malaysia, Jit Sin High School~
-Made a decision to transfer school from Jit Sin High School to Taman Sejahtera High School after 4 days attending the former and never looked back, due to immense pressure and discomfort felt at the time, i.e coming home too late at around 9p.m whimpering, the long distance. Taman Sejahtera High School fitted the bill perfectly as it was relatively close to my house(2km give or take), and school started in the morning, and it's my sister's school already~
-Being a new kid on the block, i received warm welcome and lotsa attention from the teachers and students of Taman Sejahtera High School, i was full of the joys of spring and i quickly got into the swing of things~
-Went to Summit Hotel for an event, with buffet, pleased at the sight of swimming pool and palatial hallways～
-Got my first computer, i was on cloud nine.
-First videos i watched on YouTube were a video that's got a 3d airplane flying over plains and fields, it's got Slovakia in the title, and the background music was a Secret Garden song; a video about the power of Coke ~
-Became uncontrollable when it came to Googling random stuff and lost all track of time~
-Enjoyed watching the Beijing Olympic Games, especially whitewater slalom
-Started watching English-language films regularly, in order to learn more idiomatic English~
-Started checking on a paranormal-related forum regularly, got to see dark fantasy art, extremely graphic photos among other appalling stuff~
-Saw a group of UFOs hovering in the sky one night from my balcony, lasted for 2 hours~
-Loved to buy snacks and stationery at a neighbor's house, his name's Ah Chuan~
-Loved to go buy collectibles (like stuffed animals, key fobs) at a store called HOT(and a double-storey store in the street), buy books at a top-floor bookstore, eat chicken rice at a basement restaurant at Summit Plaza～
-Loved going to book fair held once in a while at the Hokkien Association Headquarters in town~
-Went to a few wedding ceremonies, pigged out at banquets (loved the dessert and cold & scented tissue papers given at the end)~
-Went to Summit Hotel with classmates, to watch a public speaking competition, many of us were bored to tears~
-Made frequent visits to Penang General Hospital due to sister's Aspergers Syndrome diagnosis, had the chance to use the Penang Rapid bus and ferry services. Pleased as a punch to see the sight of jellyfish from our ferry and eat popcorn sold on the ferry~
-Patronized a Dvd store (day and night), buying huge amounts of Dvds like drug addiction, and sometimes mom let us eat the delicious Yi Mein (with shrimp paste) in a restaurant nearby～
-Once binge-watched several Stephen Chow's movies (on DVD, skipping boring parts) in the living room late at night til 4 in the morning, on a holiday ~
-Started reading books on Buddhist teachings (English) in school when i was at loose ends~
-Got chicken pox in mid-January 2010, had to stay at home for 2 weeks, watched Edward Scissorhands one evening, ate delicious steamed food by mom daily
-Became close friends with some really kind classmates, notably 2 Malay friends who used to walk home with me, chat with me, accompany me all the time~
-Rescued a pail of loaches with mom and mom liberated them in a river somewhere
-Became addicted to burning Dvds on computer all-day all-night~
-Dubbed the person with the best English in school (I learned umpteen English mainly through watching movies and being on the internet daily), walking English dictionary (untrue)~
-Went to a simple wedding ceremony in the neighborhood, with buffet~
-Went on a day trip to Penang Island proposed by grandma (but she didn't go on that day) , visited several tourist sites like Kek Lok Si Temple, snakes temple, GuanYin Temple, Gurney Plaza and had dinner at the seaside food stalls~2010
-Loved to eat Thai fried noodles at a restaurant in town called "Old Friends"~
-I developed a bizarre habit of effacing the parts of a reference book(with pencil) that i felt that i had got it down~
-A teacher let us watch an Iranian film called "بچههای آسمان Children of Heaven" one day (after the PMR tests ended), but we didn't get to watch the whole movie because the school bell rang and it's time to go home.~
-Submitted a several essays to an English teacher as materials to be published the next year in our school's first ever magazine, but later found out that only one essay was included, it's about a persimmon tree, while the others were about a stray dog on a highway; drinking tea one night where there's power cut, a sickly girl making a promise to her single dad; wisteria frame beneath the night sky; a girl who wants her mom to buy her a pair of mauve shoes; some thoughts on the four seasons; rain in the wee hours. I still have some of the manuscripts which i will share online at some point~
-Achieved straight As PMR result, was totally over the moon~
-Came down with excruciating harrowing flu one night in early December 2011, and went to the local hospital til early morning, got the intravenous therapy for the second time, then ate supper at the temple square, and Bruno Mar's It Will Rain got stuck in my head.
-Took great pains to make a three-page magazine spread about human-animal spiritual bond, the cover was an white empty room with a few stuffed animals (mentioned in the contents) placed on a path, named it The Knob(subtitle was Kaleidoscope and Others Beyond)~
-Liked to eat out at an outdoor dining restaurant under a big tree, liked principally the fried squids~
-Went to an Indian elderly neighbor's birthday party, who was my school bus driver~
-Liked to take a nap at around 5 p.m (on school day). One time i was awakened by a commotion to see a fire started accidentally(on a stack of old newspaper) in the balcony of a neighbor across the road who was not home, and a few brave gentlemen had to break into their house and put it out~
-Went on a school trip to an august place called Tabung Haji in Penang Island~
-Assigned by my English teacher along with few other friends who were good at English to be assessed by an outsider educator in the form of an interview, put my best foot forward and sailed through it, and the guy asked me why wasn't i in an international school already~
-Was in my element reciting Emily Dickinson's "There Is Another Sky" on stage one morning during a school assembly, and brought the house down~
-Was the only student who literally hit bull's eye in a game proposed by a young history teacher that day~
-Liked to record my reading of English articles/contents (from Wikipedia and Innerself mostly) that i was interested in on laptop~
-Made another 3-page magazine spread using a picture of Le Voyage dans la Lune as cover, contents are forgotten~
-Flung myself into an English-language school play as the narrator, twice (didn't perform up to scratch at competition), rehearsed and helped making props for months; grandma presented me with a new shirt for this occasion~
-Experieced snatch theft (got my handheld school bag[with important stuff in it like co-curricular activity records, math notes and physics homework] snatched in broad daylight, i was so aghast like a rabbit caught in the headlights), went to make a police report, became traumatized and down in the dumps afterwards~
-LOL'd after seeing a classmate writing "i love you like a love song baby" on the farewell card for a retiring teacher ~
-Stopped eating meat cold-turkey (one night at dinner i refused to eat the fried chicken that i used to love to consume) and became a pescatarian. ~
-Went to the opening ceremony of Uncle Liu's new shop, with lunchtime buffet in the alleyway~
-Became super addicted to downloading videos and storing them in USB drives~
-During SPM period, i brought packaged chocolate chip cookies to school in my bag and sometimes i forgot to eat them and they got squashed bad and i gave them to cats roaming around in the school compound.~
-Started seeing a shrink after having a major nervous breakdown ~
-Frequented a few online chatrooms anonymously and trolled some people~
-Achieved 5 As in SPM test, all 5 of which are compulsory subjects~
-Started attending university-preparatory school (Bukit Mertajam High School aka HSBM, where i had visited on several occasions previously, including one short visit to participate in a History quiz contest with our nice History teacher the year before)~
-Wasn't happy being in a science-oriented class and decided to fly by the seat of my pants and switch to an accounting class, then realized it was equally bad, but thanks to some kind souls especially an ICT class teacher and MUET class teacher plus a few classmates who really were a saving grace and softened the blow and made the transition all bearable and worthwhile~
-Had to use the padestrian bridge and the town's bus service to get home after school~
-Told by ICT teacher and MUET teacher that i sounded like a "Mat Salleh"(white person) when i talked in English(only in ESL countries)~
-Was once again dubbed the walking English dictionary and the go-to guy if you had an "English problem" in school~
-Went to school on dad's motorcycle every morning; a book fell out of my schoolbag onto the highway once~
-Produced a sildeshow full of multimedia elements with PowerPoint, linking the 1Malaysia concept with the themes in the Malaysian legend P. Ramlee's movies, plus documentation on paper and CD, it's a school project~
-Did my part manhandling an iron armoire with a friend, from an outlying storeroom to a classroom up the stairs (devil of a job), and moved countless desks, on the day it was all hands on deck to transform our classrooms into an exam hall for our first STPM exam.~
-Went to school every morning at 6:20 in dad's car listening to flyfm~
-Became the only male student in the classroom for an entire year~
-Lost my first ever pair of glasses weeks after wearing them when rushing out of school one Friday~
-Started a wordpress poetry blog on the strength of an online friend's advice, on the eve of Chinese New Year~
-During break time in school, i liked to find a spot to stand and observe people like an asshole~
-Started one other personal wordpress blog and then deleted it months later after having written a few entries on X-Men, Jules Verne, Broadway music and few others. ~
-Had the chance to do bi-monthly English extempore class presentation on any topic of interest, told a few ghost stories & conspiracy theories to my captive audience, it was diverting and i got a charge out of it~
-On the last day of STPM, i saw a pregnant white cat with a kitten(probably her fav kid) tagging along, looking for food while i was reading books in the canteen, so i bought some fried fishballs for the first time and placed them in a few corners, and felt really good seeing the white cat finding them and wolfing them down.~
As a child
19th Feb 2008
Fidel Castro announces his resignation as President of Cuba
1st Jun 2008
Yves Saint Laurent, a French fashion designer dies aged 71
27th Jun 2008
Bill Gates steps down from daily duties to concentrate on philanthropy
8th Aug 2008
Opening ceremony for the Beijing Olympic Games
19th Aug 2008
Lady Gaga's first album 'The Fame' released
21st Oct 2008
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is officially inaugurated
4th Nov 2008
Barack Obama is elected the 44th President of the United States
8th Apr 2009
Cargo ship MV Maersk Alabama is captured by Somali pirates
18th Jun 2009
NASA launches the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter
25th Jun 2009
Michael Jackson dies
10th Dec 2009
American science fiction action film Avatar is released
4th Jan 2010
Burj Khalifa tower, 829.8 m (2,722 ft) tall, is officially opened in Dubai, UAE
15th Jan 2010
The longest annular solar eclipse of the 3rd millennium occurs
12th Feb 2010
The 2010 Winter Olympics open in Canada
14th Apr 2010
Ash from Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland disrupts air traffic over Europe
4th May 2010
Nude, Green Leaves and Bust by Pablo Picasso sells in New York for US$106.5 million
20th May 2010
Scientists announced that they have created a functional synthetic genome
24th Jun 2010
Isner - Mahut match at Wimbledon concludes as longest match in Tennis History
1st Jan 2011
Estonia officially adopts the Euro currency and becomes the 17th Eurozone country old)
14th Jan 2011
The Tunisian government falls, first victim of the Arab Spring
11th Mar 2011
A 9.0-magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami hits the east of Japan
29th Apr 2011
Wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton at Westminster Abbey in London
2nd May 2011
Osama bin Laden killed by US military forces in Pakistan
7th Jul 2011
The world's first artificial organ transplant is achieved, using an artificial windpipe coated with stem cells
8th Jul 2011
The last Space Shuttle launch, Atlantis on flight STS-135
17th Sep 2011
Occupy Wall Street protests begin in the United States
18th Nov 2011
Minecraft, a sandbox indie game is published as a full release version
11th Feb 2012
Whitney Houston - American singer, actress, producer, and model dies
5th Jun 2012
The century's second and last solar transit of Venus
24th Jun 2012
Lonesome George, the last known Pinta Island Tortoise, dies making the subspecies extinct
27th Jul 2012
The 2012 Summer Olympics open in London, England
6th Aug 2012
Curiosity, the Mars Science Laboratory mission's rover, successfully lands on Mars
14th Oct 2012
Felix Baumgartner breaks the sound barrier in record 39km space dive
16th Oct 2012
Seven paintings worth $25 million are stolen from the Kunsthal in Rotterdam, the Netherlands
25th Oct 2012
Hurricane Sandy kills at least 209 people in the Caribbean, Bahamas, United States and Canada
15th Feb 2013
A meteor explodes over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk
21st Feb 2013
American scientists use a 3D printer to create a living lab-grown ear from collagen and animal ear cell cultures
28th Feb 2013
Benedict XVI resigns as pope
15th Apr 2013
Two bombs at the Boston Marathon kill 3 and injure 264
1st Jul 2013
Croatia becomes the 28th member of the European Union
7th Feb 2014
The XXII Olympic Games open in Sochi, Russia
13th Feb 2014
Belgium becomes the first country in the world to legalise euthanasia for terminally ill patients of any age 22nd Feb 2014
Viktor Yanukovych is removed from office as President of Ukraine
8th Mar 2014
Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappears en-route to Beijing
21st Mar 2014
Russia formally annexes Crimea
1st Jun 2014
The you.regettingold.com website launches
12th Jun 2014
The 2014 FIFA World Cup opens in Brazil
17th Jul 2014
Flight MH17 shot down over Eastern Ukraine
2015 onwards
now im gonna address what happened in 2015
in sept of 2015 i got accepted into a public university
called University of Northern Malaysia the campus is very green
its situated on top of a mountain full of trees and air is clean
its a dream to go there to study yet i wasnt happy
it has everything to do with me at the time not takin any aspie medication
my mind was full of worries and anxieties and apprehension
firstly i was afraid of my precious collection of things at home was gonna be tampered with
cuz my stuff were placed very close to mom and sis's piles of mess its highly unsightly
its a confusion of their shoes bags clothes crinkled rags and plastic bags
all piled up with cardboards and broken desk fan it gave me so much headache
and she didnt even care about that
and i bet she had forgotten what's in the sack
can u imagine its all stacked up with no rack shes a real pack rat
i was worried that when they wanted to find their stuff from that mess
the were gonna inevitably mess with my stuff that gave me stress
the stuff were so close together in that little space
i had things that were precious to me within my cabinet like money and souvenirs and all that
thats one thing thats on my mind when i was on campus every single day
now the second thing is that i worried i was gonna run out of money to eat someday
coz theres was no buffet and eveything had to be paid
so i ordered only cheap lunch at the canteen
every time it had to be under 3 ringgit thats the plan and scheme
and for breakfast and dinner i just ate biscuits and snacks but no ice-cream
2015
-Went back to BM High School's big hall to get my STPM certificate, after checking online and knowing I did good at 12 p.m moments before going out in father's car
-Got accepted into UUM/Northern University of Malaysia to study International Affairs Management
-Bought myself an mp3 player, a Samsung phone, a power-bank and other small tech accessories for the first time ever
-Ran numerous errands in haste in mid August in order to meet the university first day requirements, going to banks pay fees and open up accounts, going to malls and stores to buy the costly formal outfits and other necessities
-Departed early morning at 4 a.m in father's car, which is jam packed to the max, and traveled 3 hours sitting uncomfortably
-Could not stand the oppressive authoritarian treatment by a few seniors and also that particularly vile virago, could not procure any emotional support from anybody
-Loved the shuttle bus service taking us to and from school but not the vegetarian-hostile foods both at the Dorm Cafeteria and the School cafeteria
-Had to walk all the time in the hot sweltering heat, from morning til early next morning 2-3 a.m, going back and forth from the dorm hall to the main gigantic auditorium, the bus service here stank
-Forced to sleep only 3 hours for days, nervous breakdowns
-Started my karaoke therapy after returning, thank you QuanMinKGe
2016
-Frequented the Jit Sin Independent High School's Counseling Department in town to get updates on the Taiwan university fall enrollment, and to handle the multitudinous paperwork
-Had constant nightmares about going back to elementary school to start Standard 1 all over again
-Successfully applied for a chance to study abroad for an English teaching degree at University of Taipei, thank you for the help of Jit Sin Independent School's counseling department
-Had to do a series of medical tests at a clinic including the dreaded poop test
-A Thai seafood restaurant business opened briefly not too far from the neighborhood, great soup
-Cheered in front of the tv for Malaysian badminton players at the finals in Rio Olympics
-Got cold feet and cancelled the Taiwan plan days before the date of departure, forfeiting flight ticket money
-Started taking anxiety medication seriously and started to see a shift in my personality and perspective
2017
-Became temporary fan of some China rappers on the Rap of China Show, awestruck by HipHopMan all the way through
2018 (certain photo evidence uploaded)
-Got accepted into UniMAP/University of Malaysia in the state of Perlis, majoring in Business and Technopreneurship, this time overjoyed and with a grateful attitude
-Stayed one night at a pleasant little hotel in Perlis, went out to eat very expensive dinner with just curry rice and one squid
-Loved the dorm room on the main campus, the food court with countless choices of food
-Later came around to loving the dorm in a rural setting as well, the upper bunk bed, the sense of belonging to the close-knit community
-Proudly voted in the student rep election at the dorm hall one morning before going off to school
-Loved the foods and drinks and souvenir-like items, and great printing service at the Technobazaar, in fact everything about it
-Loved to eat snacks and drink cold drinks in between classes on the bench they had outside the classes
-The view of paddy fields outside my dorm window at night was magical like something out of "Spirited Away"
-Had the distinct experience of taking the exam at night in the storefront classes, shuttle buses provided
2019
-Finally started majoring in English at the coveted USM, felt liberated from robotic, obsequious, and zombifying pressures of study
-Started to approach learning in a liberal, free-thinking way, not mathematical
-Lived in campus dorm where everything was great except the squat toilet
-People had all kinds of assumptions about this eccentric transfer student
-Had the chance to be a crappy Hamlet in our own rather absurd version of the play
-Rented a room in a condo across the street from USM main gate
2020
-All USM classes and tests turned virtual in the Covid age.
-Won the lottery of being Dr. Deb's 2-month research assistant, completely working from tiny home
-Contributed some writings to the School's Instagram page
-realized there is insidious discrimination by mostly Malaysian students (with a sectarian mentality) against (openly Aspergic) me, in times of finding assignment groups
🎁The Gifts of Miyazaki: Philosophies, Critical & Creative Thinking 🛒
A boy named Shō tells the audience he still remembers the week in summer he spent at his mother's childhood home with his maternal great aunt, Sadako, and the house maid, Haru. When Shō arrives at the house on the first day, he sees a cat, Niya, trying to attack something in the bushes, but it gives up after it is attacked by a crow. Shō gets a glimpse of Arrietty, a young Borrower girl, returning to her home through an underground air vent.
At night, Arrietty's father, Pod, takes her on her first "borrowing" mission, to get sugar and tissue paper. After obtaining a sugar cube from the kitchen, they travel inside a hollow wall to a bedroom which they enter through an intriguing dollhouse with working electric lights and kitchen utensils. However, it is Shō's bedroom; he lies awake and sees Arrietty when she tries to take a tissue from his night table. Startled, she drops the sugar cube. Shō tries to comfort her, but Pod and Arrietty quietly leave and go home.
The next day, Shō puts the sugar cube and a little note beside the air vent where he first saw Arrietty. Pod warns Arrietty not to take it because their existence must be kept secret from humans. Nevertheless, she sneaks out to visit Shō in his bedroom. She drops the sugar cube on the floor, letting him know that she is there. Without showing herself, she tells Shō to leave her family alone and that they do not need his help. On her return, Arrietty is intercepted by her father. Realizing they have been detected, Pod and his wife Homily decide that they must move out. Shō learns from Sadako that some of his ancestors had noticed the presence of Borrowers in the house and had the dollhouse custom-built for them. The Borrowers had not been seen since, however.
Pod returns injured from a borrowing mission and is helped home by Spiller, a Borrower boy he met on the way. He informs them that there are other places the Borrowers could move to. While Pod is recovering, Shō removes the floorboard concealing the Borrower household and replaces their kitchen with the kitchen from the dollhouse, to show he hopes them to stay. However, the Borrowers are frightened by this and instead speed up their moving process.
After Pod recovers, he goes to explore possible new living quarters. Arrietty goes to bid farewell to Shō, but in the course of the conversation he suggests to her that the Borrowers are becoming extinct. Arrietty tells him fiercely that they will not give up so easily. Shō apologises that he has forced them to move out and reveals he has had a heart condition since birth and will have an operation in a few days. The operation does not have a good chance of success. He believes that there is nothing he can do about it, saying that eventually every living thing dies.
While Sadako is out, Haru notices the floorboards have been disturbed. She unearths the Borrowers' house and captures Homily. Alerted by her mother's screams, Arrietty leaves Shō in the garden and goes to investigate. Saddened by her departure, Shō returns to his room. Haru locks him in and calls a pest removal company to capture the other Borrowers alive. Arrietty comes to Shō for help; they rescue Homily and he destroys all traces of the Borrowers’ presence.
On their way out during the night, the Borrowers are spotted by the cat Niya. Sleepless, Shō goes into the garden for a stroll, and the cat leads him to the "river", where the Borrowers are waiting for Spiller to take them further. Shō gives Arrietty a sugar cube and tells her that her courage and the Borrowers' fight for survival have made him want to live through the operation. Arrietty gives him her hair clip as a token of remembrance. The Borrowers leave in a floating teapot with Spiller.
The Disney international dubbed version contains a final monologue, where Shō states that he never saw Arrietty again and returned to the home a year later, indicating that the operation had been successful. He is happy to hear rumors of objects disappearing in his neighbors' homes.
Castle in the Sky
An airship carrying Sheeta, a young girl who has been abducted by government agent Muska, is attacked by Captain Dola and her air pirate sons who are in search of Sheeta's small blue crystal pendant. In the resulting struggle, Sheeta falls from the airship but her descent is slowed by a mysterious power within the amulet. She safely lands in a small mining town where she is discovered by a brave young boy named Pazu (pronounced "Patsu"), who takes her into his home to recover. Pazu tells her of a mysterious floating island named Laputa which is visible in a picture taken by his father. Later, they are pursued by Dola's pirates, and then by Muska's soldiers. Eventually, the two fall into an abandoned mine, where they encounter the local eccentric Uncle Pomme, who informs them that Sheeta's amulet is made of 'volucite' crystal ('Aetherium' in the American release), a material used to keep Laputa and the other flying cities aloft.[4]
Upon leaving the mines, Sheeta tells Pazu that her full name is 'Lucita Toel Ul Laputa'. They are then captured by Muska and taken to the fortress of Tedis, where Pazu is imprisoned in a dungeon tower while Sheeta is imprisoned in a more lavish room. Muska shows Sheeta a dormant Laputan robot and reveals his knowledge of her secret name, which he interprets to be that of the Laputan royal line. Muska then threatens Pazu's life to obtain Sheeta's cooperation. For his own safety, Sheeta orders Pazu to leave and Muska offers him money to leave and forget about Laputa.
A distraught Pazu returns home, where he is ambushed by Dola and her sons. After hearing Pazu out, they prepare to intercept and capture the crystal, allowing Pazu to join them. As preparations proceed, Sheeta recites an apotropaic verse and unexpectedly activates the amulet and the robot, which follows Sheeta, destroying the fortress along the way until it is overcome by the military's airship Goliath. Pazu arrives and rescues Sheeta, but Muska obtains the amulet. The pirates, accompanied by Pazu and Sheeta, return to their airship, Tiger Moth. They pursue the Goliath, which is following directions indicated by Sheeta's amulet to locate Laputa. Both airships arrive at Laputa on the following day, with the Tiger Moth having been shot down by Goliath. The two children, separated from Dola's pirates, discover the city to be ruined and overgrown.
Dola's pirates are captured and Muska's soldiers plunder the city's treasures. Upon gaining entrance to the city's central sphere, a vast repository for all of Laputa's scientific knowledge, Muska captures Sheeta and his agents open fire upon Pazu, who escapes and frees the pirates. In the center of Laputa, which contains the immense 'volucite' crystal keeping the city aloft, Muska identifies himself as "Romuska Palo Ul Laputa", another member of Laputa's royal line, and uses Sheeta's crystal to access the advanced Laputan technology. He betrays his own soldiers and destroys the Goliath by unleashing Laputa's weapon of mass destruction. During the mayhem, the horrified Sheeta retrieves the crystal amulet and flees, but Muska pursues her. Hearing Pazu's voice, Sheeta gives the amulet to him through a gap in the wall and is cornered by Muska in Laputa's throne room.
During her confrontation with Muska, Sheeta explains that the people of Laputa left the castle because they realized that man was meant to live on earth and not in the sky. Muska refuses her arguments, shoots off her braids and threatens to kill her unless the crystal amulet is given to him. Pazu requests to be allowed to talk with Sheeta; Muska grants them one minute (three in the original Japanese version). Sheeta and Pazu recite a "Spell of Destruction", which causes the castle to disintegrate, causing Muska to fall to his death. After surviving the collapse, Pazu and Sheeta reunite with Dola and her pirates and leave Laputa behind. When they part with the pirates, Pazu flies Sheeta home as he had promised her, to start a new life together.
During the end credits, the remnants of Laputa float in orbit, maintained by the volucite crystal embedded in the roots of the central tree.
From Up on Poppy Hill
Umi Matsuzaki is a sixteen-year-old student attending Isogo High School living in 'Coquelicot Manor', a boarding house overlooking the Port of Yokohama in Japan. Her mother, Ryoko, is a medical professor studying abroad in the United States. Umi runs the house and looks after her younger siblings, Sora and Riku, and her grandmother, Hana. College student Sachiko Hirokouji, and doctor-in-training Miki Hokuto, also live there. Each morning, Umi raises a set of signal flags with the message "I pray for safe voyages".
One day, a poem about the flags being raised is published in the school newspaper. Shun Kazama, the poem's author and a member of the journalism club, witnesses the flags from sea as he rides his father's tugboat to school. At Isogo High, Umi meets Shun when he participates in a daredevil stunt for the newspaper, leaving Umi with a negative first impression. Umi later accompanies Sora to obtain Shun's autograph at the Quartier Latin, an old and dilapidated building housing Isogo High's clubs. Umi learns that Shun publishes the school newspaper, along with Shirō Mizunuma, Isogo High's student government president. She ends up helping on the newspaper. Later, Shun convinces the other students to renovate the building after a debate on the future of the Quartier Latin, which may be demolished. At Umi's suggestion, the female student body cooperates with the other students.
Back at 'Coquelicot Manor', Umi shows Shun a photograph of three young naval men. One of these men is her deceased father, Yūichirō Sawamura, who was killed in the Korean War. Shun is stunned to see the photograph. At home that night, he opens a notebook to reveal he has a duplicate of Umi's photograph. He questions his father, who reveals that Yūichirō arrived at their house one evening with a young Shun, shortly after the end of World War II. The Kazamas had recently lost their infant, so they adopted Shun. Upon discovering that he is avoiding her, Umi eventually confronts Shun, who reveals they may be siblings. Having checked the city records, Shun discovers that both their names are in the Sawamura family registry. Umi is able to hide her feelings from Shun, and they continue as friends.
When the renovation of the Quartier Latin is complete, the Kanagawa Prefectural Board of Education decides to proceed with the building's demolition. The students nominate Shun, Umi, and Shirō to visit Tokyo and meet with Tokumaru, a businessman and the school board's chairman. The trio travels through the city, which is in preparation for the 1964 Summer Olympics, and successfully convince Tokumaru to visit the Quartier Latin. After Shirō leaves the group, Umi professes her love to Shun, and he reciprocates her feelings in spite of their situation.
After she returns home, Umi discovers that her mother, Ryoko, has returned. Ryoko reveals that Shun's father was Hiroshi Tachibana — the second man in the photograph. In 1945, Tachibana was killed in an accident on a repatriation ship. Shun's mother died in childbirth, and his other relatives were killed in the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. However, Ryoko was unable to raise Shun, as she was pregnant with Umi during her time as a medical student. Yūichirō registered the child as his own to avoid leaving Shun as an orphan in the confused postwar years, but Shun was eventually given to a local couple, the Kazamas. Umi, however, still has concerns.
Tokumaru visits the Quartier Latin the next day and, impressed by the students' efforts in renovating the building, he decides to cancel the demolition. Umi and Shun are soon summoned to the harbor. They meet Yoshio Onodera, now a ship's captain, who was the third man in the photograph, and the sole survivor of the three. Confirming that Umi and Shun are not related by blood, Onodera tells the full story of the three naval men in the previous era. With everything resolved, Umi returns to Coquelicot Manor and resumes her daily routine of raising the flags.
Howl's Moving Castle
Sophie, a young milliner, encounters a wizard named Howl on her way to visit her sister Lettie. Upon returning home, she meets the Witch of the Waste, who transforms her into a ninety-year-old woman. Seeking to break the curse, Sophie leaves home and sets off through the countryside. She meets a living scarecrow, whom she calls "Turnip Head". He leads her to Howl's moving castle, where she enters without invitation. She subsequently meets Howl's young apprentice Markl, and a fire-demon named Calcifer, who is the source of the castle's magic as well as its overall movement. When Howl appears, Sophie announces that Calcifer has hired her as a cleaning lady.
Meanwhile, Sophie's nation is caught up in a war with a neighboring kingdom, who is searching for their missing prince. The King summons Howl to fight in the war. However, Howl decides to send Sophie to the King (under the pretense of being his mother) to tell him that Howl is too much of a coward to fight. Before leaving, he gives Sophie a charmed ring that leads her to Calcifer. Sophie meets Suliman, the king's advisor and also the Witch of the Waste, whom Suliman punishes by draining all of her power, turning her into a harmless old woman. Suliman warns Sophie that Howl will meet the same fate if he does not fight and so Howl arrives to rescue Sophie. Suliman tries to trap him, but with Sophie's help they escape along with the former Witch of The Waste and Suliman's dog Hin.
Sophie learns that Howl's life is somehow bound to Calcifer's, and that Howl has been transforming into a bird-like creature to interfere with both sides in the war, but each transformation makes it more difficult for him to return to human form. Howl then has the castle magically-linked to Sophie's home, parking the castle itself on the town's outskirts. A few days later, the town is bombed by enemy aircraft and Suliman's henchmen attack the house and Sophie’s hat shop. Howl heads out to protect the group. Sophie then moves everyone out of the house and removes Calcifer from the fireplace, which collapses the castle. The Witch of The Waste realises that Calcifer has Howl's heart and grabs the fire demon, setting herself on fire. Sophie panics and pours water onto the Witch, which douses Calcifer. The castle then splits in two; Sophie falls down a chasm and is separated from the group.
Following the charmed ring, Sophie wanders into a scene from the past, where she sees a young Howl catch a falling star – Calcifer – and give him his heart. Sophie calls for them to find her in the future as she is teleported away. She returns to the present, finds Howl, and they reunite with the others. The Witch returns Howl's heart, and Sophie places it back inside Howl, reviving him and freeing Calcifer, though he decides to stay. Sophie's curse is broken. After she kisses Turnip Head on the cheek, he returns to human form, revealing himself to be Justin, the missing prince from the enemy kingdom, who promptly heads for home. Suliman, watching through a crystal globe, decides to end the war. As the bombers fly away, Sophie, Howl and the others travel high in the air in a new flying castle.
As is traditional for trainee witches, thirteen-year-old Kiki leaves home with her familiar spirit, a talking black cat named Jiji. She flies on her broomstick to the port city of Koriko. While searching for somewhere to live, Kiki is pursued by Tombo, a geeky boy obsessed with aviation who admires her flying ability.
In exchange for accommodation, Kiki helps Osono, the kindly and heavily pregnant owner of a bakery. She opens a "Witch Delivery Business", delivering goods by broomstick. Her first delivery goes badly; she is caught in a gust and loses the black cat toy she is supposed to deliver. Jiji pretends to be the toy until Kiki can retrieve the real item. She finds it in the home of a young painter, Ursula, who repairs and returns it to Kiki so she can complete the delivery and rescue Jiji.
Kiki accepts a party invitation from Tombo, but is delayed by her work and, exhausted, falls ill. When she recovers, Osono clandestinely arranges for Kiki to see Tombo again by assigning her a delivery addressed to him. After Kiki apologizes for missing the party, Tombo takes her for a test ride on the flying machine he is working on fashioned from a bicycle. Kiki warms to Tombo but is intimidated by his friends, and walks home.
Kiki becomes depressed and discovers she can no longer understand Jiji, who has befriended a pretty white cat. She has also lost her flying ability and is forced to suspend her delivery business. Kiki has a surprise visit from Ursula, who determines that Kiki's crisis is a form of artist's block. Ursula suggests that if Kiki can find a new purpose, she will regain her powers.
While Kiki is visiting a customer, she witnesses an airship accident on television which leaves Tombo hanging from one of the drifting vessel's mooring lines. Kiki regains her flying power and manages to rescue him. She regains her confidence, resumes her delivery service, and writes a letter home saying that she and Jiji are happy.
In 1958 Japan, university professor Tatsuo Kusakabe and his two daughters, Satsuki and Mei, move into an old house to be closer to the hospital where the girls' mother, Yasuko, is recovering from a long-term illness. The house is inhabited by tiny creatures called susuwatari—small, dark, dust-like house spirits seen when moving from light to dark places.[note 1] When the girls become comfortable in their new house, the soot spirits leave to find another empty house.
One day, Mei discovers two small spirits who lead her into the hollow of a large camphor tree. She befriends a larger version of a soot spirit, which identifies itself by a series of roars that she interprets as "Totoro". She falls asleep atop Totoro, but when Satsuki finds her, she is on the ground. Despite many attempts, Mei is unable to show her family Totoro's tree. Tatsuo comforts her by telling her that Totoro will reveal himself when he wants to.
One rainy night, the girls are waiting for Tatsuo's bus, which is late. Mei falls asleep on Satsuki's back and Totoro appears beside them, allowing Satsuki to see him for the first time. Totoro has only a leaf on his head for protection against the rain, so Satsuki offers him the umbrella she had taken for her father. Totoro is delighted and gives her a bundle of nuts and seeds in return. A giant, bus-shaped cat halts at the stop and Totoro boards it and leaves. Shortly after, Tatsuo's bus arrives.
The girls plant the seeds. A few days later, they awaken at midnight to find Totoro and his colleagues engaged in a ceremonial dance around the planted seeds. The girls join in and the seeds grow into an enormous tree. Totoro takes the girls for a ride on a magical flying top. In the morning, the tree is gone but the seeds have indeed sprouted; it is left unclear whether the girls were dreaming.
The girls find out that a planned visit by Yasuko has to be postponed because of a setback in her treatment. Mei does not take this well, and argues with Satsuki, later leaving for the hospital to bring fresh corn to Yasuko. Her disappearance prompts Satsuki and the neighbors to search for her. In desperation, Satsuki returns to the camphor tree and pleads for Totoro's help. Delighted to help, he summons the Catbus, which carries her to where the lost Mei sits. The bus then whisks them over the countryside to see Yasuko in the hospital. The girls overhear a conversation between their parents and discover that she has been kept in hospital by a minor cold but is otherwise doing well. They secretly leave the ear of corn on the windowsill, where it is discovered by their parents, and return home.
Eventually, Mei and Satsuki's mother returns home, and the sisters play with other children, while Totoro and his friends watch them from afar.
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind
One thousand years have passed since the Seven Days of Fire, an apocalyptic war that destroyed civilization and created the vast Toxic Jungle,[a] a poisonous forest swarming with giant mutant insects. In the kingdom of the Valley of the Wind, a prophecy predicts a saviour "clothed in blue robes, descending onto a golden field". Nausicaä, the princess of the Valley of the Wind, explores the jungle and communicates with its creatures, including the gigantic, trilobite-like armored Ohm.[b] She hopes to understand the jungle and find a way for it and humans to co-exist.
Late in the night, a massive cargo aircraft from the kingdom of Tolmekia crashes in the Valley despite Nausicaä's attempt to save it. Its sole survivor, Princess Lastelle of Pejite, pleads with Nausicaä to destroy the cargo and dies. The cargo is an embryo of a Giant Warrior, one of the lethal, gargantuan humanoid bioweapons that caused the Seven Days of Fire. Tolmekia, a military state, seized the embryo and Lastelle from Pejite, but their plane was attacked by insects and crashed. One of the insects emerges wounded from the wreckage and poises to attack, but Nausicaä uses a bullroarer to calm it and guides it away from the village.
Soon after, Tolmekian troops, led by Princess Kushana, invade the Valley, execute Nausicaä's father and capture the embryo. Enraged, Nausicaä assaults several Tolmekian soldiers and is about to be overwhelmed when the Valley's swordsmaster, Lord Yupa, soothes the belligerents. Kushana plans to mature the Giant Warrior and use it to burn the Toxic Jungle. Yupa discovers a secret garden of jungle plants reared by Nausicaä; according to her findings, plants that grow in clean soil and water are not toxic, but the jungle's soil has been tainted by pollution.
Kushana leaves for the Tolmekian capital with Nausicaä and five hostages from the Valley, but a Pejite interceptor shoots down the Tolmekian airships carrying them. Nausicaä, Kushana and the hostages crash-land in the jungle, disturbing several Ohms, which Nausicaä soothes. She leaves to rescue the Pejite pilot Asbel, brother of Princess Lastelle, but both crash through a stratum of quicksand into a non-toxic area below the Toxic Jungle. Nausicaä realizes that the jungle plants purify the polluted topsoil, producing clean water and soil underground.
Nausicaä and Asbel return to Pejite but find it ravaged by insects. A band of survivors explains that they lured the insects to eradicate the Tolmekians, and are doing the same to the Valley. They capture Nausicaä to prevent her from warning the Valley, but with the help of Asbel, his mother, and a number of sympathizers, Nausicaä escapes on her glider. Flying home, she finds two Pejite soldiers baiting thousands of Ohms into the Valley using a wounded baby Ohm. The people of the Valley take shelter while the Tolmekians deploy tanks and the Giant Warrior, but tank-fire does not deter the Ohms, and the Giant Warrior, hatched prematurely, disintegrates.
Nausicaä liberates the baby Ohm and gains its trust. She and the Ohm stand before the herd but are run over. The Ohms calm down and use their golden tentacles to resuscitate her. Nausicaä, her dress drenched blue with Ohm blood, walks atop golden Ohm tentacles as through golden fields, fulfilling the savior prophecy. The Ohms and Tolmekians leave the Valley, and the Pejites remain with the Valley people, helping them rebuild. Deep underneath the Toxic Jungle, a non-toxic tree sprouts.
Only Yesterday
In 1982, Taeko Okajima is 27 years old, unmarried, has lived her whole life in Tokyo and now works at a company there. She decides to take another trip to visit the family of the elder brother of her brother-in-law in the rural countryside to help with the safflower harvest and get away from city life. While traveling at night on a sleeper train to Yamagata, she begins to recall memories of herself as a schoolgirl in 1966, and her intense desire to go on holiday like her classmates, all of whom have family outside of the big city.
At the arrival train station, she is surprised to find out that her brother in law's second cousin Toshio, whom she barely knows, is the one who came to pick her up. During her stay in Yamagata, she finds herself increasingly nostalgic and wistful for her childhood self, while simultaneously wrestling with adult issues of career and love. The trip dredges up forgotten memories (not all of them good ones) — the first stirrings of childish romance, puberty and growing up, the frustrations of math and boys. In lyrical switches between the present and the past, Taeko wonders if she has been true to the dreams of her childhood self. In doing so, she begins to realize that Toshio has helped her along the way. Finally, Taeko faces her own true self, how she views the world and the people around her. Taeko chooses to stay in the countryside instead of returning to Tokyo. It is implied that she and Toshio begin a relationship.
Pom Poko
The story begins in late 1960s Japan. A group of tanuki are threatened by a gigantic suburban development project called New Tama, in the Tama Hills on the outskirts of Tokyo. The development is cutting into their forest habitat and dividing their land. The story resumes in early 1990s Japan, during the early years of the Heisei era. With limited living space and food decreasing every year, the tanuki begin fighting among themselves for the diminishing resources, but at the urging of the matriarch Oroku ("Old Fireball"), they decide to unify to stop the development.
Several tanuki lead the resistance, including the aggressive chief Gonta, the old guru Seizaemon, the wise-woman Oroku, and the young and resourceful Shoukichi. Using their illusion skills (which they must re-learn after having forgotten them), they stage a number of diversions including industrial sabotage. These attacks injure and even kill people, frightening construction workers into quitting, but more workers immediately replace them. In desperation, the tanuki send out messengers to seek help from various legendary elders from other regions.
After several years, one of the messengers returns bringing a trio of elders from the distant island of Shikoku, where development is not a problem and the tanuki are still worshipped. In an effort at re-establishing respect for the supernatural, the group stages a massive "ghost parade" to make the humans think the town is haunted. The strain of the massive illusion kills one of the elders, and the effort seems wasted when the owner of a nearby theme park takes credit for the parade, claiming it was a publicity stunt.
With this setback, the unity of the tanuki finally fails and they break up into smaller groups, each following a different strategy. One group led by Gonta takes the route of eco-terrorism, holding off workers until they are wiped out in a pitched battle with the police. Another group desperately attempts to gain media attention through television appearances to plead their case against the habitat's destruction. One of the elders becomes senile and starts a Buddhist dancing cult among the tanuki who are unable to transform, eventually sailing away with them in a ship that takes them to their deaths, while the other elder investigates joining the human world as the last of the transforming kitsune (foxes) have already done.
When all else fails, in a last act of defiance, the remaining tanuki stage a grand illusion, temporarily transforming the urbanized land back into its pristine state to remind everyone of what has been lost.[3] Finally, with their strength exhausted, the tanuki most trained in illusion follow the example of the kitsune: they blend into human society one by one, abandoning those who cannot transform. While the media appeal comes too late to stop the construction, the public responds sympathetically to the tanuki, pushing the developers to set aside some areas as parks. However, the parks are too small to accommodate all the non-transforming tanuki. Some try to survive there, dodging traffic to rummage through human scraps for food, while others disperse farther out to the countryside to compete with the tanuki who are already there.
One day, Shoukichi, who also joined the human world, is coming home from work when he sees a non-transformed tanuki leaping into a gap in a wall. Shoukichi crawls into the gap and follows the path, which leads to a grassy clearing where some of his former companions are gathering. He joyfully transforms back into a tanuki to join them. Shoukichi's friend, Ponkichi addresses the viewer, asking humans to be more considerate of tanuki and other animals less endowed with transformation skills, and not to destroy their living space; as the view pulls out and away, their surroundings are revealed as a golf course within a suburban sprawl.
Ponyo
Fujimoto, a once-human wizard/scientist, lives underwater along with his daughter, Brunhilde, and her numerous smaller sisters. While she and her siblings are on an outing with their father in his four-flippered submarine, Brunhilde sneaks off and floats away on the back of a jellyfish. After an encounter with a fishing trawler, she drifts to the shore of a small fishing town in a glass jar where she is rescued by a five-year-old boy named Sōsuke. Shattering the jar open with a rock, Sōsuke cuts his finger in the process. Brunhilde licks his wound causing it to heal almost instantly. Sōsuke names her Ponyo and promises to protect her. Meanwhile, a distraught Fujimoto searches frantically for his lost daughter whom he believes to have been kidnapped. He calls his wave spirits to recover her, leaving Sōsuke heartbroken.
Ponyo and Fujimoto have an argument, during which Ponyo refuses to let her father call her by her birth name. She declares her desire to be known as 'Ponyo' and to become human. Using her magic, she forces herself to grow leg- and arm-like appendages and start changing into a human, a power granted to her by the human blood she ingested when she licked Sōsuke's finger. Her alarmed father forces her to change back into her true form and leaves to summon Ponyo's mother, Granmamare. Meanwhile, Ponyo, with the help of her sisters, breaks away from her father and inadvertently uses his magic to make herself fully human. The huge amount of magic that she releases into the ocean causes an imbalance in the world, resulting in a tsunami, leaving ships stranded at sea. Ponyo goes back to Sōsuke, who is amazed and overjoyed to see her. He tells his mother, Lisa, that Ponyo has returned as a little girl. Lisa allows Ponyo to stay at their house for the time being, and they wait out the storm together at Sōsuke's house. Worried about the residents of the nursing home where she works, Lisa leaves to check up on them, promising Sōsuke that she will return home as soon as possible.
Granmamare arrives at Fujimoto's submarine. Sōsuke's father, Kōichi, sees her traveling and recognizes her as the Goddess of Mercy. Fujimoto notices the moon appears to be falling out of its orbit and satellites are falling like shooting stars, symptoms of the dangerous imbalance of nature that now exists. Granmamare declares that if Sōsuke can pass a test, Ponyo can live as a human and that the order of the world will be restored. A still-worried Fujimoto reminds her that if Sōsuke fails the test, Ponyo will turn into sea foam.
Sōsuke and Ponyo wake up to find that most of the land around the house has been covered by the ocean. Since it is impossible for Lisa to come home, the two children decide to find her. With the help of Ponyo's magic, they make Sōsuke's toy pop pop boat life-size and set out across the swollen ocean.
When Ponyo and Sōsuke make it to the forest, however, Ponyo tires and falls asleep only to be woken by Sōsuke, who implores her to ignite a second candle as the one powering their boat is about to go out. Ponyo then dozes off multiple times before concentrating enough to make the candle, which then goes out. She then passes out, and Sōsuke has to push the boat to shore, only to find that the boat, deprived of Ponyo's magic, is reverting to its toy size. Sōsuke drags Ponyo to the shore, where he finds Lisa's abandoned car. Ponyo then wakes up, and the two decide to continue looking for her.
Ponyo and Sōsuke head into a tunnel. Inside Ponyo reverts to being a fish due to overuse of her magical powers. Meanwhile, Lisa and the residents of the nursing home, who are temporarily able to breathe water because of Granmamare, are waiting excitedly below the surface for Ponyo and Sōsuke to arrive. Sōsuke and Ponyo encounter Fujimoto, who warns the boy that the balance of nature is in danger and begs Sosuke to return Ponyo to him. Sōsuke doubts Fujimoto and attempts to flee, but the two children are quickly captured and Fujimoto takes them down to the protected nursing home.
Sōsuke is reunited with Lisa and meets Granmamare, with whom Lisa has just had a long private conversation. Granmamare asks Sōsuke if he can love Ponyo whether she is a fish or human. Sōsuke replies that he "loves all the Ponyos." Granmamare then tells her daughter that if she chooses to become human once and for all, she will have to give up her magical powers. Ponyo agrees to this, so Granmamare encases her in a bubble and gives her to Sōsuke. She tells him that kissing the bubble will complete Ponyo's transformation. The balance of nature is thus restored and the previously stranded ships head back to port. Fujimoto respects his daughter's choice to become a human, having decided he can trust Sōsuke with Ponyo's welfare. Ponyo then joyfully jumps high in the air and kisses Sōsuke, completing her transformation as a human.
Porco Rosso
Porco Rosso, an Italian veteran World War I fighter ace and freelance bounty hunter, fends off an attack on a ferry liner by airborne pirates. Porco treats himself to dinner at the Hotel Adriano, which is run by his friend Gina.
At the hotel, the heads of the pirate gangs are contracting Curtis, an arrogant and ambitious American ace, to assist them in their next attacks. Curtis falls in love with Gina on the spot, but is frustrated to see his declarations rebuffed and her affection for Porco. After successfully executing a pirating mission, Curtis tracks down Porco, who is flying to Turin (Milan in the English language version) to have his plane serviced, and shoots him down as he experiences an engine outage, claiming to have killed him. Porco survives, though his plane is heavily damaged. Porco continues the trip by train with the remains of the plane, much to the irritation of Gina, who reminds him that there is a warrant for his arrest in Italy.
Porco arrives discreetly in Turin to meet Piccolo, his mechanic. He learns that Piccolo's sons have emigrated to find work elsewhere due to the Great Depression, and much of the engineering will have to be carried on by his young granddaughter Fio. Porco is initially skeptical of Fio's abilities as a mechanic, but after seeing her dedication in the repair project he accepts her as a competent engineer. Once Porco's plane is finished, Fio joins him on his flight home, with the justification that if the secret police arrest the team, they can say that Porco forced them to help and took Fio as a hostage. Stopping off to refuel on the way, Porco discovers that the new fascist government is beginning to hire seaplane pirates for their own use, thus putting him out of business.
Back at the Hotel Adriano, Curtis proposes to Gina but she turns him down, saying that she is waiting for Porco Rosso. Upon returning home, Porco and Fio are ambushed by the pirates, who threaten to kill Porco and destroy his plane. Fio talks them out of it, but Curtis appears and challenges Porco to a final duel. Fio makes a deal with him declaring that if Porco wins, Curtis must pay off his debts owed to Piccolo's company, and if Curtis wins, he may marry her.
That night, while preparing shells for the dogfight, Porco tells Fio a story from World War I. Two days after Gina's first wedding to his friend Bellini, his squadron was attacked by Austro-Hungarian aircraft. Overwhelmed and unable to save his fellow pilots he entered a cloud to evade his persuers. He recalls blacking out and awakening to find himself in complete stillness above the clouds, with a silver band shimmering high in the distant sky. Allied and enemy aircraft, flown by the airmen who died in the dogfight - Bellini included - rise out of the cloud and fly upward towards the band, ignoring him. Porco soon sees that the band is in fact thousands of planes flying together. He blacks out again, and awakens flying low over the sea, alone.[note 1] As she falls asleep, Fio (and the viewer) briefly see Marco's true face instead of the pig.
The next day, the duel is arranged and a large crowd gathers to observe. The indecisive and long dogfight between Porco and Curtis soon dissolves into a bare-knuckle boxing match when both planes' machine guns jam. As they fight, Porco accuses Curtis of being a womaniser, but Curtis responds that he is worse; Fio adores him and Gina is only interested in him. This comes as such a shock to Porco that Curtis is able to knock him down, only for Porco to be saved by a spectator stepping up to referee the fight and signalling the end of a round. The fight ends with both combatants knocking each other out and falling under the shallow water. Gina arrives and calls out to 'Marco' (Porco), who rises first and is declared the winner. She warns the crowd that the Italian air force has been alerted and are on their way, and invites everyone to regroup at her hotel. To Gina's frustration, Porco hands Fio over to Gina, requesting that she look after her, and turns away. Just before Gina's plane takes off, Fio leans out and gives Porco a kiss.
As the crowd leave, Porco volunteers to lead the air force away and invites Curtis to join him. Curtis reacts with surprise and asks Porco to turn around, suggesting that - like Fio - he had briefly seen Marco's true face. Fio narrates that in the end Porco outflies the Italian air force and is never hunted by them again; Fio herself became president of the Piccolo company, which is now an aircraft manufacturer; Curtis became a famous actor; and the pirates continued to attend the Hotel Adriano in their old age. She does not divulge whether Gina's hope about Porco Rosso was ever realized, saying it is their secret.
After the credits, a familiar red seaplane appears soaring in the sky before disappearing into the clouds.
Princess Mononoke
In Muromachi Japan, an Emishi village is attacked by a demon. The last Emishi prince, Ashitaka, kills it before it reaches the village, but its corruption curses his right arm. The curse gives him superhuman strength, but will eventually spread through his body and kill him. The villagers discover that the demon was a boar god, Nago, corrupted by an iron ball lodged in his body. The village's wise woman tells Ashitaka that he may find a cure in the western lands Nago came from, but he cannot return to his homeland. Before Ashitaka leaves, his younger sister Kaya gives him her crystal dagger so that he would not forget her.
Heading west, Ashitaka meets Jigo ("Jiko-bō" in the original Japanese version), an opportunist Buddhist monk, who tells Ashitaka he may find help from the Great Forest Spirit, a deer-like animal god by day and a giant "nightwalker" by night. Nearby, men herd oxen to Irontown ("Tataraba" in Japanese), led by Lady Eboshi, and repel an attack by a wolf pack led by the wolf goddess Moro. Riding one of the wolves is San, a human girl. Ashitaka discovers two injured Irontown men and carries them through the forest, where he encounters many kodama and glimpses the Forest Spirit. In Irontown, Ashitaka learns that Eboshi built the town by clearcutting forests to claim ironsand and produce iron, leading to conflicts with the forest gods and Asano, a local daimyō. Irontown is a refuge for social outcasts, including lepers employed to manufacture firearms; it was one of these guns that had wounded Nago. Eboshi also explains that San was raised by the wolves as one of their own and resents humankind.
San infiltrates Irontown to kill Eboshi, but Ashitaka intervenes, knocking them both unconscious. As he leaves, he is unintentionally shot by a villager, but the curse gives him the strength to carry San out of the village. San awakens and prepares to kill the weakened Ashitaka, but hesitates when he tells her that she is beautiful. She takes him to the forest, and decides to trust him after the Forest Spirit saves his life. A boar clan, led by the blind boar god Okkoto, plans to attack Irontown to save the forest. Eboshi prepares for battle and sets out to kill the Forest Spirit with Jigo, who is working for the government; she intends to give the god's head to the Emperor in return for protection from Lord Asano. According to legend, the Forest Spirit's head grants immortality.
Ashitaka recovers from his wound but remains cursed; he returns to Irontown to find it besieged by samurai, and heads out to warn Eboshi. The boar clan is annihilated in battle, and Okkoto is corrupted by his wounds. Jigo's men disguise themselves in boar skins and trick the rampaging Okkoto into leading them to the Forest Spirit. San tries to stop Okkoto, but is swept up in his demonic corruption. Moro intervenes and Ashitaka dives into the corruption, saving San. The Forest Spirit euthanizes Okkoto and Moro. As it transforms into the nightwalker, Eboshi decapitates it. It bleeds ooze which spreads over the land, killing anything it touches as the nightwalker searches for its head, which Jigo steals. The forest and kodama begin to die; Moro's head comes alive and bites off Eboshi's right arm, but she survives.
After the samurai flee and Irontown is evacuated, Ashitaka and San pursue Jigo and retrieve the head, returning it to the Forest Spirit. The Spirit dies as the sun rises, but its form washes over the land and heals it, and Ashitaka's curse is lifted. Ashitaka stays to help rebuild Irontown, but promises San he will visit her in the forest. Eboshi reunites with the townspeople and vows to build a better town. The forest begins to regrow, and a kodama emerges from the undergrowth.
Spirited Away
Ten-year-old Chihiro Ogino and her parents are traveling to their new home when her father takes a shortcut. They enter what appears to be an abandoned amusement park that Chihiro's father insists on exploring. Finding a seemingly empty restaurant stall stocked with food, Chihiro's parents begin to devour the food greedily. While exploring, Chihiro finds an exquisite bathhouse and meets a young boy named Haku who warns her to return across the river before sunset. However, Chihiro discovers too late that her parents have turned into pigs and she is unable to cross the flooded river.
Haku finds Chihiro and has her ask for a job from the bathhouse's boiler-man, Kamaji, a yōkai commanding the susuwatari. Kamaji refuses to hire her and asks the worker Lin to send Chihiro to Yubaba, the witch who runs the bathhouse. Yubaba tries to frighten Chihiro away, but she persists, so Yubaba gives Chihiro a contract to work for her. Yubaba takes her name and renames her Sen (千). While visiting her parents' pigpen, Haku gives Sen her goodbye card addressed to Chihiro and realizes that she has already forgotten her name. Haku warns her that Yubaba controls people by taking their names, and that if she forgets hers like he has forgotten his, she will not be able to leave the spirit world.
Sen faces discrimination from the other workers because she is still a human and not a spirit; only Haku and Lin show sympathy for her. While working, she invites a silent masked creature named No-Face inside, believing him to be a customer. A "stink spirit" arrives as Sen's first customer, and she discovers he is the spirit of a polluted river. In gratitude for cleaning him, he gives Sen a magic emetic dumpling. Meanwhile, No-Face imitates the gold left behind by the stink spirit and tempts a worker with gold, then swallows him. He demands food and begins tipping extensively. He swallows two more workers when they interferred with his conversation with Sen, who walked away.
Sen discovers paper Shikigami attacking a Japanese dragon and recognizes the dragon as Haku transformed. When a grievously injured Haku crashes into Yubaba's penthouse, Sen follows him upstairs. A shikigami that stowed away on her back transforms into Zeniba, Yubaba's twin sister. She transforms Yubaba's baby son Boh into a mouse, creates a decoy baby and turns Yubaba's harpy into a tiny, fly-like bird. Zeniba tells Sen that Haku has stolen a magic golden seal from her, and warns Sen that it carries a deadly curse. Haku attacks the shikigami which eliminates Zeniba's hologram. He falls into the boiler room with Sen and Boh on his back, where Sen feeds him part of the dumpling with which she had intended to give her parents, causing him to vomit both the seal and a black slug, which Sen crushes with her foot.
With Haku unconscious, Sen resolves to return the seal and apologize for Haku. Sen confronts No-Face, who is now massive, and feeds him the rest of the dumpling. No-Face chases Sen out of the bathhouse, steadily regurgitating everything he has eaten. Sen, No-Face, and Boh travel to see Zeniba with the train tickets given to her by Kamaji. Yubaba orders that Sen's parents be slaughtered, but Haku reveals that Boh is missing and offers to retrieve him if Yubaba releases Sen and her parents. Yubaba agrees, but only if Sen can pass a final test.
Sen, No-Face and Boh meet with Zeniba, who reveals that Sen's love for Haku broke her curse and that Yubaba used the black slug to control Haku. Haku appears at Zeniba's home in his dragon form and flies Sen and Boh to the bathhouse. No-Face decides to stay behind and become Zeniba's spinner. In mid-flight, Sen recalls falling in her youth into the Kohaku River and being washed safely ashore, correctly guessing Haku's real identity as the spirit of the Kohaku River. When they arrive at the bathhouse, Yubaba forces Sen to identify her parents from among a group of pigs in order to break their curse. After Sen answers correctly, her contract combusts and she is given back her real name. Haku takes her to the now dry riverbed and vows to meet her again. Chihiro crosses the riverbed to her restored parents, who do not remember anything. They quietly walk back to their car, which is now covered in dust and leaves. Before getting in, Chihiro takes a last look back at the dark tunnel she came through.
The Castle of Cagliostro
In September 1968, master thief Arsène Lupin III and his colleague, Daisuke Jigen, flee the Monte Carlo Casino with huge quantities of stolen money. They escape in Lupin's Fiat 500, but Lupin recognizes the bills as distinctively high-quality counterfeits.[a] Deciding to seek out the source, they head to the Grand Duchy of Cagliostro, the alleged wellspring of the counterfeits.
Shortly after arriving, they rescue a young woman being pursued by a gang of thugs, with her and Lupin falling off a cliff while escaping. Lupin is knocked unconscious, and the woman captured, but she leaves him a signet ring. Lupin recognizes the woman as Clarisse, the princess of Cagliostro, who will soon be married to Count Cagliostro, the country's regent. The Count's arranged marriage will cement his power and recover the fabled ancient treasure of Cagliostro, for which he needs both his and Clarisse's ancestral rings.
A squad of assassins attack Lupin and Jigen at their inn but fail to kill them or recover the ring. Lupin leaves his calling card on the back of Jodot, the Count's butler and chief assassin, announcing he is going to steal Clarisse. Lupin summons Goemon Ishikawa XIII to aid their quest to rescue the princess and tips off his longtime pursuer, Inspector Koichi Zenigata, to his whereabouts to provide a distraction. Zenigata's presence and a party give Lupin enough time to sneak into the castle. There he finds his on-off lover, Fujiko Mine, posing as Clarisse's lady-in-waiting, who tells him where the princess is being held. Lupin makes his way to Clarisse and returns her ring, vowing to help her to escape. Before he can act, the Count drops Lupin down a trapdoor into the castle's catacombs, as Lupin had planned. Lupin mocks the Count through the ring he gave to Clarisse – a fake containing a transmitter – and the Count sends three assassins to retrieve the real ring.
Lupin encounters Zenigata, who was accidentally dropped down earlier, and they form a pact to help each other escape. After overpowering the assassins, they escape into a room full of printing presses — the source of the counterfeits. Zenigata wants to collect evidence, but Lupin points out they must escape the castle first. They start a fire as a distraction and steal the Count's autogyro. However, as they attempt to rescue Clarisse, Lupin is shot. Clarisse offers the ring to the Count in exchange for Lupin's life. After securing the ring, the Count's attempt at betrayal is foiled when Fujiko's actions allow her, Lupin, and Zenigata to flee. As Lupin recovers from his injuries, Zenigata attempts to convince his superiors at Interpol to prosecute the Count for counterfeiting, but fearing political repercussions, they halt the investigation and remove him from the case. Meanwhile, Lupin intends to stop the wedding and rescue the princess. He also reveals his reasons for rescuing Clarisse to Jigen, Goemon and her family's former gardener — as a young girl, she had saved his life during his unsuccessful first attempt to find the treasure of Cagliostro Castle ten years earlier. Fujiko tips off Lupin on a way to sneak into the castle, and forms a plan with Zenigata to publicly reveal the counterfeiting operation under the cover of pursuing Lupin.
The wedding with a drugged Clarisse appears to go as planned, until Lupin disrupts the ceremony and, despite the Count's precautions, makes off with both Clarisse and the Count's rings. Meanwhile, Zenigata and his squadron arrive in the chaos, and the inspector leads Fujiko, posing as a television reporter, to the Count's counterfeiting facility to expose the operation to the world. The Count pursues Lupin and Clarisse to the face of the castle's clock tower. Lupin is forced to surrender the rings to save Clarisse, and they are both knocked into the lake surrounding the tower. After using the rings to reveal the secret of Cagliostro, the Count is killed by the mechanism unveiling the treasure. Lupin and Clarisse watch as the lake around the castle drains to reveal exquisite ancient Roman ruins — the true treasure of Cagliostro. Lupin and his friends bid farewell to Clarisse, now the rightful ruler of Cagliostro. With Zenigata pursuing them again (for the crime of "stealing Clarisse's heart") and Fujiko fleeing with the plates from counterfeit printing presses, Lupin and the gang drive out of Cagliostro, with the police close behind them.
The Cat Returns
Haru Yoshioka is a quiet and shy high school student who has a suppressed ability to talk with cats. One day, she saves a cat from being hit by a truck on a busy road. The cat she saved turns out to be Lune, Prince of the Cat Kingdom. As a thanks, the cats give Haru gifts of catnip and mice, and she is offered the Prince's hand in marriage. Her mixed reply is taken as a yes.
Wanting none of this, Haru hears a kind, female voice, which tells her to seek Muta, a large white cat and to seek directions for the cat business office from him. Muta leads her there to meet Baron (the same Baron from Whisper of the Heart), who is a cat figurine given life by the work of his artist, and Toto, a stone raven who comes to life much like the Baron. Soon after meeting them, Haru and Muta are forcefully taken to the Cat Kingdom, leaving Toto and the Baron in the human world to follow the group from the air. The Baron and his crow friend find the entrance to the Cat Kingdom on Earth: Five lakes forming a cat's paw.
Haru is treated to a feast at the castle of the Cat Kingdom and she begins to slowly turn into a cat with tan paws, ears, nose, tail, and whiskers, though still mainly human, so that she will make a suitable bride for the Prince. At the feast Baron (in disguise) dances with Haru as part of the entertainment, and reveals to her that the more she loses herself in the kingdom, the more cat-like she will become, and that she has to discover her true self. When Baron is discovered and is forced to fight the guards, he and Haru are helped by Yuki, a white female cat who works as a servant in the palace and who had tried to warn Haru to leave the Cat Kingdom before she was taken to the castle. After Yuki shows them an escape tunnel, Haru, the Baron, and Muta move through a maze to a tower, which contains a portal to Haru's world. The King goes through a series of efforts to keep them in the Cat Kingdom long enough for Haru to remain trapped in the form of a cat and have her as his daughter-in-law.
Lune and his guards return to the Cat Kingdom to reveal the King was not acting on his behalf and that he has no desire to marry Haru; he has instead planned on proposing to Yuki. Muta is revealed to be a notorious criminal in the Kingdom (having devoured a whole lake of fish in one session), and Yuki as being the strange voice who had advised Haru to go to the Cat Bureau. In her childhood, Haru had saved Yuki from starvation by giving her the fish crackers she was eating, and Yuki has now repaid her kindness. Muta, or as he is known as the infamous criminal Renaldo Moon, tells Haru "I respect a woman who stands up for herself" after she rejects the King's marriage proposal outrightly and proceeds to help her escape from the King's soldiers.
Eventually Baron, Haru and Muta escape the realm of cats, with the aid of Prince Lune and Toto, and Haru discovers her true self and tells Baron how she has come to like him. He tells her the doors of the Cat Bureau will be open for her again. Haru returns to the human world with more confidence in herself; after learning from her friend that her former crush has broken up with his girlfriend, she simply replies "it doesn't matter anymore."
The Wind Rises
In 1918, a young Jiro Horikoshi longs to become a pilot, but his nearsightedness prevents it. He reads about the famous Italian aircraft designer Giovanni Battista Caproni, and dreams about him that night. In the dream, Caproni tells him that he has never flown a plane in his life, and that building planes is better than flying them.
Five years later, Jiro is traveling by train to study aeronautical engineering at Tokyo Imperial University and meets a young girl, Naoko Satomi, traveling with her maid. When the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 hits, Naoko's maid's leg is broken and Jiro carries her to Naoko's family, leaving without giving his name.
In 1927, Jiro graduates with his friend Kiro Honjo and both are employed at aircraft manufacturer Mitsubishi and are assigned to design a fighter plane, the Falcon, for the Imperial Army. During tests, the Falcon breaks apart in mid-air and the Army rejects it. Dispirited about the seeming backwardness of Japanese technology, Jiro and Honjo are sent to Germany in 1929 to carry out technical research and obtain a production license for a Junkers G.38 aircraft. Jiro sees Hugo Junkers, argues with German guards and witnesses violent antisemitism. He dreams again of Caproni, who tells him that the world is better for the beauty of planes, even if humankind might put them to terrible purposes.
In the spring of 1932, Jiro is promoted to chief designer for a fighter plane competition sponsored by the Imperial Navy, but his design, the Mitsubishi 1MF10, fails testing in 1933 and is rejected. Disappointed, Jiro goes to a summer resort in Karuizawa to rest, where he meets Naoko again. They become engaged, but Naoko has tuberculosis and refuses to marry until she recovers. Castorp, a German visitor privately critical of the Nazi regime, assists in the romance before fleeing arrest by the Japanese secret police.
Wanted in connection with Castorp, Jiro hides at his supervisor's home while he works on a new navy project. Following a lung hemorrhage, Naoko recuperates in a mountain sanatorium but cannot bear being apart from Jiro, and returns to marry him. Jiro's sister Kayo, now a doctor, warns Jiro that his marriage to Naoko will end badly as tuberculosis is incurable. Though Naoko's health deteriorates, she and Jiro enjoy their time together.
Jiro leaves for the test flight of his new prototype aircraft, the Mitsubishi A5M. Knowing that she will die soon, Naoko returns to the sanatorium, leaving letters for Jiro, her family, and friends. At the test site, Jiro is distracted from his success by a gust of wind, suggesting Naoko's death.
In the summer of 1945, Japan has lost World War II and has been devastated by air raids. Jiro again dreams of meeting Caproni, telling him he regrets his aircraft was used for war. A group of Zeros fly past and their pilots salute Jiro. Caproni comforts him, saying that Jiro's dream of building beautiful aircraft was nonetheless realized. Naoko appears, exhorting her husband to live his life to the fullest.
Whisper of the Heart
Shizuku Tsukishima is a 14-year-old student at Mukaihara Junior High School, where she is best friends with Yuko Harada. Living in Tokyo with her parents Asako and Seiya, as well as her older sister Shiho, Shizuku is a bookworm and is keen on writing. During an ordinary evening, she looks through the checkout cards in her library books. She discovers they all have been checked out by Seiji Amasawa (天沢 聖司). Over the next few days, Shizuku encounters a young man, later revealed to be Seiji, who often annoys her.
Finding a cat riding a train, Shizuku follows it to discover an antique shop run by Shiro Nishi. In the shop is a cat statuette, "The Baron".
Later at the antique shop, Shizuku sings "Take Me Home, Country Roads", a song she has been translating for her school graduation, accompanied by Seiji and Nishi. Seiji is revealed to be the grandson of Nishi, and Shizuku and Seiji befriend each other. Seiji is learning to make violins to follow his dream as a master luthier. Days after the two meet, Seiji leaves for Cremona, Italy, for a two-month study with a master violin-maker, but not before professing his admiration for Shizuku’s talents. Firming her resolve, Shizuku decides to test her talents as well. Discussing with Yuko, she decides to pursue her writing seriously during the two months. She asks Nishi if she can write about The Baron, to which Nishi grants his consent on the condition that he will be the first to read the finished story.
Shizuku begins to concoct a fantasy story featuring herself as the female protagonist, the Baron as the male hero who is looking for his lost love, Louise, and the cat she followed from the train (who is, among other names, known as "Moon" and "Muta") as the story's villain who took her from him. Devoting her time to her writing, Shizuku eats snacks, stays up until early in the morning, and her school grades drop. Shizuku argues with her family over her grades, and as she continues to push herself into finishing the story before Seiji returns, she begins to lose heart.
When her story is complete, Shizuku delivers the manuscript to Nishi. After Nishi reads Shizuku's writing and gives her his benevolent assessment, she breaks down in tears as the stress of the last two months finally turns into relief. Consoling her with udon, Nishi reveals to Shizuku that when he studied in Germany in his youth, he found his first love, Louise. They discovered the twin statuettes of the Baron and his female companion in a cafe, but they could only purchase them singly because the female statuette was being repaired at that time. Nishi kept the Baron while Louise would hold onto the Baron's companion, and they and the two cat statuettes would reunite at a later time. However, the two lovers and the statues were subsequently separated during World War II and were never reunited.
Deciding she wants to attend high school to learn more about writing, Shizuku is returned home by Nishi and announces to her mother that she will return to studying for her entrance exams full-time. The next morning, she encounters Seiji on his bicycle. He has returned a day early, and decided to finish high school before returning to Cremona to become a luthier.
The two ride Seiji's bike to a lookout and watch the sun rise over the city, where Seiji professes his love for Shizuku and proposes future marriage; she happily accepts.
