YU AOI

 Before today’s topic…

To my joy, an American man left a comment on my post. Thank you so much! It’s like a vitamin to me. I’ll make more efforts than ever.

Profile of Yu Aoi 　http://www.itoh-c.com/group/profile/prof_s/aoi/

　Today’s topic is about my favorite Japanese actress. Her name is Yu Aoi. She was born on 17 August in 1985. She is now 26. Her hometown is Fukuoka. She was a kids model, and appeared in some TV commercials. When she was 14, she passed the audition of a famous musical play “Annie.” In 2001, she appeared in a film for the first time. The title of it is “All About Lily Chou-Chou.” The director is Shunji Iwai. I like him and his film.

 I have some favorite films she appeared. The first is “Hula Girl.” I have been a fan of her since I watched this film. The scene of this is in a coal mining region in Japan. One day, a woman came to there from a big city to teach Hula dance. A girl Yu Aoi played learned Hula with her friends, and became a great Hula dancer. Do you know Spa Resort Hawaiians in Fukushima? Hula dancers there are models of the girls in this film. Yu Aoi danced Hula great. I was impressed her dance. She wears a red dress in this film. Her white skin suit the red dress! Next favorite is “Flowers and Alice.” When she appeared, she is not yet famous. I watched it recently. Honestly, I don’t like this story. It is tiring for me. But, I love her dance again. She danced ballet in this film. Yu Aoi has learned ballet since she was 2. I learned it too, so I like dancing and watching ballet. I was moved by her ballet. Her long arms and legs were so beautiful. I replayed the scene again and again. Watch it, and you will be fascinated!

 Not only her performance, I like her looks. First, I like her face. Hers is so Japanese face. Mine is not also a chiseled face, but a flat face, so she is an idol of me as a girl who has a Japanese face.  As far as I look at her, she is usually with a face with almost no make-up, even on TV. But she is beautiful. I don’t know why. Her white skin, plump lips, not too big eyes… All of parts of her face are my favorite! I want a face like hers! Haha. And I like her figure. She has long and slim arms and legs. Her height is 160, and it is taller than mine. They are envious for me. However, what attracted me most is her voice. Contrary to her cute face, she has low voice. Her voice is really fascinating, so she has acted as a narrator and a voice actress of animation films many times. I think there are many fans of her voice because I’m one of them.

 By the way, I have also a favorite actor. He is Masaki Okada. Yu Aoi and he played together on two films. One is “Raiou.” It is a Japanese period film. I didn’t watch it yet because I studied for entrance exams of universities during its road show, so I want to watch it. The other is my favorite film, “Honokaa Boy.” The main character is a Japanese boy living in Honokaa in Hawaii acted by Masaki Okada. Yu Aoi acted as his girlfriend. She appears only less than 10 minutes in this film, but I was glad that they played together!

 I think I will always be a big fan of her. I hope her more wonderful performance! :)

EXPLICATION of A SHORT STORY "My Last Duchess" (Margaret Atwood)

 While we had a discussion in last class, a member of our group told us an opinion. It was a nice clue for me on explication of “My Last Duchess” by Margaret Atwood. I would like to think more and go into this story deeply.

What I would like to focus on and what made me interested in is that Margaret Atwood tried to tell us an importance of literature. The conclusive evidence of this opinion is this line.

“Why did we have to study these hapless, annoying, dumb-bunny girls?” (p.74 l.11)

Before this line, the storyteller girl saw the last duchess in a negative view. The duchess always smiles to everyone in the same way, and she was easily pleased. The duke did not like the aspect of her too. The view to the duchess of the storyteller girl made her think more like that line. And what made her think that much stronger is, I think, a quarrel with her boyfriend Bill. When she was talking about “My Last Duchess” with Bill, they didn’t agree with each other, and had a quarrel. She felt so sad. If I had been her, I would have thought that we had a quarrel because of literature. She is good at reading literature, and seemed to continue to study well. However, why did she study literature? And why do I study literature?

From the beginning of this short story, the storyteller girl and her teacher Miss Bessie talked about literature. The students including the girl and Bill explicate the poem. I think, Bill thought that it was meaningless to study literature. Words of Bill “That goddamn Duchess poem” (p.63 l.7) expresses Bill’s thought to study this poetry. Bill thought so, and didn’t try to understand literature. Perhaps, the girl didn’t understand why she studied literature, but she continued to study and tried to understand it. The two students are like but opposite. Many students all over the world might be like one of them. In my opinion, Margaret Atwood wanted readers like us to be as if we were them and think the importance of literature. In this short story, there is no answer about what is importance of literature, so I tried to find it out.

 Some scenes in this short story, for example in Miss Bessie’s class, the students including the storyteller girl and Bill thought deeply about the meanings of the poem at one word, line, part. For example, the girl thought over about a word “last.” (p.51 l.1) She took pains with only one word, and she imagined with only one word. Only one word can have many meanings. Generally, literature especially poem is abstract and not clear. So we have to explicate them. Doing so on every literature is hard woks. However, luckily, we can blow up our images. The ending of this short story is also unclear and we would feel gloomy after reading it. But by think about the continuation of it, a lot of stories are completed. If you read again the stories after you blew up your imagines about it, the view to the story might be changed. I think it is wonderful that understandings of a story are depended on readers, and that is one of appeals and importance of literature. This is not what Margaret Atwood said but just my opinion, and there may be any other importance of literature. But I think Margaret Atwood wanted to tell us such a thing through the girl and Bill.