The results are in

Well this experiment threw me a bit of a curve ball, but it all worked out in the end, and maybe even for the better.

Now since The Wind Rises is not something my family was particularly thrilled about seeing, I wanted to make it as accessible as possible for them. The version I saw a few weeks ago was dubbed in English by Disney, so I assumed that all other theaters would be showing the same version, when I looked up the show times online yesterday it said nothing to the contrary, so I had no reason to believe otherwise. As we approach the ticket counter, the board displayed the following "The Wind Rises - Subtitle". Everyone frowns, my Dad audibly groans. My first thought was "Great, there goes any chance of them liking it even remotely". We got there a bit early so everyone was just kind of waiting around making small talk, but you could tell they were in a slightly bad mood, which put me in a bad mood because the whole point was to get them to have a good time. Let me clarify that if there is one thing that my Dad dislikes more than movies, it's reading.
The movie began and I thought to myself, well at least I can experience watching the film in both languages and hearing the original voice cast, I just felt bad for having dragged them to something that they weren't keen on to begin with only to have it turn into something that they were even less interested in.

The film concluded I enjoyed myself and began to gather everyone's opinion.

Grandma: She actually really liked it, the plot, the animation, everything, once she got into it, she didn't even mind reading the subtitles.

Grandpa: He really enjoyed the plot of the film, surprisingly okay with something that didn't portray WWII Japan in an overtly negative light. He actually caught a minor plot detail that I misinterpreted even after two viewings. He even said he would watch it again if it was in English. The subtitles definitely hampered his enjoyment of the film though which is a crying shame.

Uncle: He said it was pretty good, he enjoyed all of the engineering aspects as expected. He commented on how Jiro didn't look like he aged much past the initial time jump which I agreed with, I attempted to offer a thematic explanation for that design choice but I think it was lost on him. He also said that Jiro looked a lot like Speed Racer, which, I don't really get, but it was an interesting comparison. I think that Speed Racer is the only anime character that he is familiar with so to him it seemed like an apt comparison, but if you look at them side by side...not remotely close.

 Mom: She really loved all of the artistic aspects of the movie. Afterward she was raving about all of the colors and the planes, she really liked it. Story wise...she followed enough to be sad about Nahoko's death, otherwise, I don't think she got it. She also left a few times to get up and stretch because she was getting fidgety which I thought was odd because normally she is perfectly fine with sitting for long periods of time, but at least she had a good time even if she missed the broader point.





Step-Mom: I didn't really get much of an opinion out of her. She said it was all right, and that was about the extent of it. She was sitting next to me so I heard her laugh at a few parts so maybe she liked it, I can't really be certain.

Dad: And for the one I expected to have the most problems with the film, I was pretty much right. He told me he read the whole thing and he sounded pretty proud of it, and I was proud of him for it. He said the story line was interesting, though I'm not sure how much of that he actually understood. In the end he just said it wasn't his thing and that he might have liked it a bit better if it were in English, which there is nothing wrong with. He also, separate from my Uncle, told me that Jiro looked like Speed Racer which amused me, but again, they are about the same age, so same concept applies.

On the car ride home, and at dinner there was a little talk about the movie, but for the most part the conversation drifted into other topics more often than not. A few racist comments were made by my Mom and my Grandpa, but that is nothing new and I kind of expected them to be worse so I guess they weren't as bad as they could have been. Overall I have to say that it was a mixed reception and about what I expected, I kind of wish they could have seen it in English, I feel like they would have appreciated it a bit more, but whats done is done and I'm just happy to have a family that is willing to not only accept my interests, but even partake in them from time to time as I know there are a lot of people out there who don't have that luxury.