Ok, maybe not top eight, but certainly eight totally fun holiday episodes to watch this time of year!
“Amends” – Buffy the Vampire Slayer
For a show whose premise was basically seven seasons of Halloween, Buffy The Vampire Slayer’s single attempt at a Christmas episode is one of my favorites in the whole series. Don’t get me wrong, there’s still plenty of spookiness creeping around amongst the holiday “cheer.” Angel is haunted by the First Evil (the later big bad of the final season) in the form of the more recently dead Jenny Calendar and memories of his past escapades as a souless vampire and, prior to that, as a shitty soul-having human. The First attempts to convince Angel to knock his brooding boots with Buffy, a good time that would inevitably lead to him losing his soul. Having a difficult time resisting the temptation, Angel decides to kill himself by making friends with Mr. Sunlight rather than succumbing to the demon inside him. The most intense moment of the episode occurs when Angel grabs a pleading Buffy and hopelessly asks, “Am I a thing worth saving, huh? Am I a righteous man?” Santa thinks so, Angel. Luckily, as the sun rises we hear a weather report announcing that a freak snow storm magically hit Sunnydale (that’s the Sunnydale in Southern California) blocking out any vampire-dusting light. Apparently the Powers that Be have decided that the world didn’t quite want Angel gone yet. The couple walks through the snow together hand in hand. Holiday cheer up the yang, am I right?
“The Bath Item Gift Hypothesis” – The Big Bang Theory
I have to admit that I don’t watch too much Big Bang Theory, but this episode is certainly my favorite and is definitely up there when it comes to holiday themed episodes. I don’t remember what happens with the other nerds on the show because the best story arc revolves around Penny mentioning she got Sheldon a gift. Naturally, Sheldon feels threatened by such an imposition of social norms and buys several gift baskets of various sizes so as to be completely prepared to counteract any gift level Penny may throw at him. The result: dude, I can’t even explain what happens or why it’s so funny. Happy Holidays
“Festivus” – Seinfeld
It’s a Festivus for the rest of us. Tired of the commercialism of more traditional holidays? Or how would you like to take a vacation just a few days before December 25th? Well then my friends, I may have just found the holiday for you! With traditions like the “Airing of Grievances” in which everyone gets the opportunity to tell attendees at the Festivus table how each has disappointed him during the year, and the “Feats of Strength” where the night’s not over until you wrestle the host to the floor, Festivus is a holiday everyone should experience once. Barring that, just check out the classic episode and dream of your very own Festivus aluminum pole
“You Better Watch Out” – Married with Children
I’m not going to lie, this show has a special place in my heart for it’s ability to always do holiday episodes right. That hard luck family from the 90’s that wasn’t on Rosanne experience a Christmas miracle when the Lakeside mall Santa, who had been scheduled to parachute in to a crowd of eager shoppers, misses his mark and crashes in to the Bundy lawn, dead as a doornail. That alone should make this episode a classic for the whole family.
“Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo” – South Park
This episode is brilliant on so many levels and depressing on the one where you remember how fucking amazing South Park used to be. I honestly don’t know where to start, so let’s just jump into the music. “A Lonely Jew on Christmas” and “Kyle’s Mom’s a Bitch” were instant classics the second you heard them. Plus, in an episode revolving around a fiber-preaching turd in a Santa hat, we get to see religious sensitivity and political correctness through the innocent eyes of children. This is also the only episode on the list where, not only is that Jesus guy mentioned, but actually appears on the day of his birth. It’s not actually a small amount of depth and satire crammed in to a 22 minute long Christmas special, which (by the way Joss Whedon) manages to make you think without needing to make you cry.
“Pilot” – Six Feet Under
What, you didn’t think I could out-holiday-morbid Buffy? Silly mortals. I almost forgot that the episode that started one of the best series that I have ever seen was not your average Charlie Brown Christmas. The Fisher clan attempts to gather for obligatory family time in the funeral home/family manse. By attempt I mean that Claire, the rebellious red-headed daughter, goes off to do some meth, David (the secretly gay Michael C. Hall) tries to spend time with his boyfriend, and Nate, the eldest, banging some chick in an airport supply closet while waiting to get picked up by his father. And where is the lucky patriarch of such doting children? Well on his way to pick up Nate, Nathaniel Fischer gets hit by a bus and dies. His ghost-type things spends the rest of the episode (and series) visiting his stunned children and mostly just fucking with them. Really, egg nog for all who can get through it.
“Christmas with the Joker” – Batman: The Animated Series
Any BtAS fans here? Stupid question. Who else would visit this weird and geeky corner of the Internet? That kind of makes a long plot summary a little unnecessary, so let’s reminisce together. Remember when the Joker busted out of Arkham Asylum on a Christmas Tree Rocket? Classic. Or when he (maybe thankfully) commandeered the broadcast of It’s a Wonderful Life in order to host his own variety Christmas Spectacular of kidnapping, explosions, and general mayhem? How festive. I think my favorite part of the episode occurs when Scrooge-y Batman finally gets what’s coming to him: a spring loaded pie. That Joker, what a kidder.
“The Christmas Invasion” – Doctor Who
Santa forgive me, I don’t watch Doctor Who. Don’t worry non-Whovians, this sounds nuts to me too. Marking the first full-episode appearance of Tenth Doctor, David Tennant, the episode deals with the post-regeneration effects a Time Lord suffers through while London is under attack by the Sycorax during Christmas. The Doctor spends half the episode being guarded by Rose Tyler, her mother Jackie, and ex-boyfriend Mickey, before being energized by a spilled cup of tea and challenging the Sycorax leader to a sword fight to decide the Earth’s fate. This is also the first time we see his iconic brown duster, suit, and Converse as he joins Rose for Christmas dinner.
Did we miss something in this list? Let us know in the comments, on Twitter @SubCultured, or on our Facebook page! Happy Holidays to you and yours, with fangs and bat-a-rangs!
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In English, the cover came with a warning of the “mature themes” within the movie.
Yesterday I shared with you the facts behind the theory that, rather than an adorable forest spirit, Totoro is actually a harbinger of death. While I’m not sure how much I believe in the theories that connect Totoro with the Sayama Incident, this next theory is undeniable, and will definitely make you cry.
Many people who love Totoro have fond memories of watching the movie while they were children. I was late to the game, only having seen it for the first time two years ago, but it is still a movie I keep somewhere safe and cuddly, filed under “movies I can watch without necessarily thinking about the sad things in the world”. As it turns out, that is a misfile.
My Neighbor Totoro was originally distributed along with the film Grave of the Fireflies— a much darker movie based on Akiyuki Nosaka’s short story about a boy and his sister in WWII Kobe, Japan. The story is semi-autobiographical; Nosaka lost his sister due to malnutrition around the same time that the story and movie are set.
That context, along with the macabre title of the film, should be enough for tip anyone off to what’s coming: Grave is not a happy movie. In fact, Grave of the Fireflies is so sad and dark that distributors believed the only way to keep people in the theatre was the promise of a happy film afterwards. That happy film, of course, was Totoro. At least that’s one theory.
I wouldn’t stick around for this, either.
Director Isao Takahata has said that when the movies were in theatres, they were not always presented in the order they were intended–which presented a problem as viewers who had just been treated to Totoro would not want to stick around for the heavy themes and disturbing animation of Grave. If Grave went first, however, people would stay put and let King Totoro cheer them right up.
Another interesting connection between Grave and Totoro is the fact that the former was distributed in schools in Japan, in order to teach students about WWII and the effects it had on the Japanese people. The film was still packaged with Totoro, which may have something to do with the latter’s current cult-status in Japan and around the world.
In case your morbid curiosity has been piqued, Grave of the Fireflies is available in its full form (English dubbed–if you find Japanese subbed, please let me know) on youtube here, or you can buy it on DVD at Amazon.com.
Don’t forget to check out Two New Ways to Watch Totoro (You Won’t Like Either One), when I will share with you the saddest origin story you ever did hear. (Hint: It has to do with two sisters and a dark murder.)
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First, a message from your friendly (excuse the pun) neighbor-hood Totoro, as an apology for the bomb I’m about to drop on you.
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In my apartment, Totoro is a frequent topic of discussion. I kind of assume that Totoro is a frequent topic of discussion in households everywhere, but just in case he isn’t, I would like to impart some wisdom upon which this discussion has recently stumbled: Totoro has some dark-ass roots.
I wish I were talking about his hair color here, but I am not. In fact, there are two different origin stories that I’ve been researching obsessively since I heard about them, attempting desperately to prove that My Neighbor Totoro, the film that brought Totoro into existence, is nothing more than a really adorable movie about some really adorable kids and their really adorable forest-spirit friends.
Unfortunately, I have learned two new… let’s call them origin stories, for lack of a better term… that would argue the contrary. In order to keep you from seriously going off the deep end, I will present them in a two part post — one today, one tomorrow, that reveals some of the darker edges around Totoro’s furry belly.
Part One: “The Sayama Case” or “Are Mei and Satsuki dead?”
My roommate came home the other day and told me a story he had heard from a classmate who happens to be from Japan. “So My Neighbor Totoro is apparently based on a real-life murder case of two little girls, and Totoro is supposed to be a spirit of death.” Well, we live in the age of the internet, so my instant reaction was to google “Totoro based on a true story”. Go ahead, google it. Back?
At the time of writing this article, that search garnered 645,000 results. The sources are from all over the world, in English as well as Japanese, and stories range from “MIYAZAKI WROTE TOTORO AS A MESSAGE OF DEATH” all the way to “Well, isn’t this quite the coincidence **wink wink**” In order to save you some time and offer you what I think is the best explanation, I have broken my findings into two sections:
The Case
The Sayama Incident refers to the details surrounding a 1963 murder case which took place in Sayama City, Japan, 
wherein a teenage girl named Yoshie Nakata was kidnapped and later found dead. While a man was eventually convicted of the murder, many sources still contest his guilt in the case. Kazuo Ishikawa, the man arrested, is a member of the Buraku minority, which is often discriminated against because of their status as laborers. Most of the information online about the Sayama Incident is split into two categories: sites contesting Ishikawa’s guilt, and those relating the case to Totoro.
There are some reports that Yoshie’s sister, after finding her body, returned home driven crazy by the sight of her murdered sibling. Others state that the family, which included three boys and two other girls, was being raised by a single father while their mother was hospitalized for a brain tumor. If these facts were true, and I can not verify nor deny them with any certainty, then they would certainly strengthen the case for Miyazaki drawing inspiration from the Sayama Incident. Without these facts, however, the ties are loose where they do exist.
The Theory
What most of these theories boil down to is this: Totoro is a harbinger of death. Mei dies first, like Yoshie in the Sayama Incident, and when Satsuki goes looking for her sister, her own meeting with Totoro dooms her as well. Adding to this idea are the theories that the movie is told in a non-linear fashion and that the girls die early on. The final scene is supposed to be a flashback to the beginning of the movie, before their mother was checked into the hospital. Furthermore, the scene where the girls and the troupe of Totoros create the giant tree in their backyard and sit in its branches, their father is actually writing a story about his children who have already died. As he imagines the story, he sees it manifest outside his window.
According to certain Totoro fan sites, when Yoshie’s sister returned from finding her body in the woods, she was rambling about a raccoon creature, and a cat monster, which inspired both Totoro and the Cat Bus. I have not been able to find any factual reports or exact quotes. Instead, I have found other, more plausible explanations of both Catbus and Totoro’s origins. The catbus is definitely inspired by the Japanese legend of the Bake-neko, or a cat which has gained magical powers to transform and transport the dead into the after-life. and Totoro is in some part based on Japanese racoons or Tanukis–with or without the tragic insanity of Yoshie’s sister.
The only part of the theory that I believe holds water in relation to catbus is the fact that, once Sataskui sets out to find her sister, his destination changes simply to “Mei” rather than a real location. This might indicate that Mei is nowhere in this world, and in order to find her they will have to traverse over to where she can be found.
While watching the movie again yesterday, I’m not sure how much of the theory I actually believe, although if the
translations and other cultural explanations on my.opera.com are accurate, I might be more willing to see the sinister side of a movie that otherwise just makes me smile. Granny’s character can see Mei and Satsuki long after Mei runs into the forest the first time, and Kanta (who we prefer to call the Maytag man) continues to interact with them while they wait in the rain.
Miyazaki’s comments on the film have also run contrary to elements of this theory. While some argue that the statues sitting behind Mei while she is lost are indicators of her death, Miyazaki has explained that they were actually spirits which he used to illustrate the fact that she is safe and will find her way home.
While there are definitely similarities between the the Sayama Incident and elements of Totoro, without more hard evidence or comments from the filmmakers I don’t know that there’s enough of a case to actually claim that the movie is entirely based on the real-life events. The next theory, regardless of which version you want to believe, is incontestably tragic and very real.
Don’t forget to check out Two New Ways to Watch Totoro (You Won’t Like Either One): Part Two, when I will share with you the saddest origin story you ever did hear. (Hint: It has to do with the end of World War II. From the Japanese perspective.)
Colorado Anime Fest Wrap Up
Viz Media Announces Free Streaming Anime!
Sub Cultured is Headed to Colorado Anime Fest!
Aniplex of America to Stream New Slice of Life Comedy, Slow Start, on Crunchyroll in January 2018
Nan Desu Kan 2016 – Recapping Rocky Mountain’s Biggest Anime Convention!
