An important date came and went quietly, marked only by a simple dinner at Akashi, which has reasonably (I say 'reasonably' as I was prepared to pay more for a special occasion) priced sets though it looks kinda' ex from the outside. A tempura-soba combination for June, a bento for me.

An animated movie followed to remind us that we were still young at heart despite the years that we have accumulated since we last regarded cartoons as a media staple. Yes, we watched 'Horton'. Wonder what happened to the rest of the title?

When I first encountered Horton eons ago, I actually watched it as an animated short on TV. It was Dr Zeuss brought to full, anthropomorphic, technicolor 2D-life.

The movie is all that and more. Jim Carrey and Steve Carell reunite (remember 'Bruce Almighty'?) to flesh out the characters of Horton the elephant and the Mayor of Whoville respectively. The two are great foils for each other. Horton is quite anarchistic and lets his imagination run wild -- oh, the anime sequence... -- while the Mayor is all constrained responsibility, tradition and order. No matter the character type, they both face the same problem: they both have acquired a new knowledge that threatens their societies' security and even their existence, yet no one believes them and mostly everyone is anxious to put an end to the insanity that they both appear to have descended to.

There's a great many levels 'Horton' can be read at. I hadn't seen the complexity before, but the book can be a great introduction to several of the concepts we will encounter in KI. I think I'll make it a required reading for the JC1s. Or they should at least go watch the movie.