I know you're at Wiscon and I'm late catching up on my flist after my conference, but I just wanted to say that I liked that image of the grandmother dialling her rotary phone too. I was going to write more about it, because she complicates the film's gendered dichotomies a little. But I was wondering, is there already some allowance for the "tough granny" character in the Japanese gender-role hierarchy? If that's the case, she could be just as "traditional" a female character as the wives.

Hope you're having fun!