Your favorite Studio Ghibli movie, part 1

[louisak]

You know what I find interesting about Studio Ghibli movies is that to me they are so magical and entertaining yet my children don’t find them especially captivating. Maybe they just haven’t seen the right ones yet, like ‘Castle in the Sky’ which has a ‘boy’s adventure’ quality - and a lot of action compared to most. (Or more pessimistically, perhaps I find them enchanting because they are largely hand-drawn, and my children don’t appreciate that because they era in which they are growing up is dominated by computer animation.)

Speaking of action movies, I also liked the Lupin movie ‘The Castle of Cagliostro’ which apparently Miyazake directed, although I think it predated Studio Ghibli.

The Castle of Cagliostro was his first feature film. According to Wikipedia, it came out in 1979, five years before Nausicaa (and, yes, before Ghibli). It is a bit primitive compared to his later stuff, but there are flashes of his distinctive brilliance there as well.

Funny thing about your kids not being captivated by Studio Ghibli. My two older girls (ages 10 and 14) are both serious fans. They have several Joe Hisaishi soundtrack albums and own many of the films on DVD. Well, to each his own, as the saying goes.

 

[louisak]

I like Naussicaa, but I thought Miyazaki felt like it might be his only shot and attempted to put all of his ideas into too short a movie.

Yeah, the plot is rather overstuffed. The funny thing is that it was based on a manga which Miyazaki himself wrote, and the film doesn’t even follow the whole story of the manga, but only covers the first half (maybe not even that much).

You can get the manga in English translation, either in individual volumes or in a huge two-volume boxed set. I gave the boxed set to my daughter as a birthday present a few years ago. She read the whole thing and loved it. I took a look through it - and let me tell you, if you thought the movie was strange and confusing - the manga is even more so.

 

[louisak]

Funny thing about your kids not being captivated by Studio Ghibli. My two older girls (ages 10 and 14) are both serious fans. They have several Joe Hisaishi soundtrack albums and own many of the films on DVD. Well, to each his own, as the saying goes.

My girls also have a 2-CD recording called Studio Ghibli Songs, which is a Japanese import - as typical for those things, the title is given in both English and Japanese on the cover, but the inside text is only Japanese. It has all the songs that appeared over the opening or closing credits of all the Studio Ghibli movies up to that point (I think Ponyo was the last one). My girls love it and for a long time, they used to play it every day. The fact that the song lyrics were all in Japanese didn’t bother them in the slightest.

 

[ToeInTheWater]

I would have said that the environmental message is more overt in Nausicaa than in any other Miyazaki film (think of the toxic jungle, the discovery of the poisoning of the soil etc.). However, I also think the environmental theme is integral to the plot, therefore it doesn’t bother me as something tacked-on - the way the anti-war theme in Howl seems tacked on.

Well, what I liked about Nausicaa was that the worldbuilding, while certainly having commonalities with other animes set in a post-environmental apocalypse world, took more creativity than simply “quasi-Japan” or “quasi-Europe” and I appreciated the scope of it. Also that Miyazaki had the courage to show Nausicaa killing people, though this can be argued to be a case of self-defense as the men she kills are soldiers trying to capture her.

As I recall Princess Mononoke kills people too. And both movies feature female antagonists who have sympathetic qualities as well. You can understand why the Tolmekian general wants to exterminate the insects, and you can understand why Lady Eboshi wants to slay the Kami of the forest. Indeed, I probably would have liked Mononoke better if it hadn’t been so hyped up before the release. It actually has a more realistic, if it can be said, ending than Nausicaa, with the forest being only partially restored to life.

Though I have heard that the Nausicaa movie’s triumphant ending is misleading as the movie only covers about half the story, and the manga has a more bittersweet ending. Although I heard that Miyazaki actually wrote the manga AFTER the movie as he realized the movie ending was too positive to be a really good one.

Wesrock, interesting take on the end of Howl. It is plausible, but still doesn’t take away the ickiness of “it’s A-OK that a girl falls for a man decades, perhaps even centuries, older than her, as long as he doesn’t LOOK old and wrinkly”.

As for my second favorite Miyazaki film, it would be a toss-up between Laputa and Kiki. Laputa is more a traditional action-adventure tale, but it does have a rather bittersweet ending as Laputa winds up being lost again, now even higher in the sky than before. Kiki is a very appealing character but the scope of the story is pretty limited, though even that ends on a not 100% happy note as she loses the ability to talk to Gigi.

Re the Castle of Cagliostro, I haven’t watched it though I have watched some Lupin III TV show episodes when they were shown in the US. I have heard though that many manga fans have mixed feelings about the film as while it’s done well, it really sanitized Lupin III’s character, and influenced the TV version, portrayed as essentially a well-meaning buffoon, despite being a master thief, in the TV shows. And his lecherous nature is played for a laugh, he doesn’t really get to act on it.

But I once happened across an American translation of the manga version and was shocked to find that Manga Lupin is smarter than the TV version but is also MUCH darker, a murderer and rapist as well as a thief.

 

[Wesrock]

The Lupin III movie is great, and has a more complete end than most Miyazaki films get. I think I prefer Kiki because of the slice of life feel, even if she’s a witch. I like the simplicity. Same for Totoro.

 

[ToeInTheWater]

The Lupin III movie is great, and has a more complete end than most Miyazaki films get. I think I prefer Kiki because of the slice of life feel, even if she’s a witch. I like the simplicity. Same for Totoro.

I think we could certainly make a case, while Miyazaki obviously enjoys doing big epic meaningful movies, he actually does a better job with the “slice of life” movies that involve magic only in small doses. Certainly they tend to feel more “complete” at the end. I’m not personally a big fan of “slice of life” movies, though, at least not enough to pay money to see them on the big screen.

 

[louisak]

I think we could certainly make a case, while Miyazaki obviously enjoys doing big epic meaningful movies, he actually does a better job with the “slice of life” movies that involve magic only in small doses.

Yeah, there is a good case to be made there. I think it becomes even stronger when you consider Whisper of the Heart, which had a lot of creative involvement from Miyazaki even though he wasn’t the director - he wrote the script and prepared the storyboards. It is one of my favorite Ghibli films and I think it’s under-appreciated. I’m not a good enough film critic to put my feelings about it into words, except to say that a plot synopsis doesn’t even begin to convey what makes it so special. It’s the countless nuances in characterization, in mood, in the loving detail of the artwork that makes even ordinary places and objects seem almost enchanted.

 

[louisak]

As I recall Princess Mononoke kills people too. And both movies feature female antagonists who have sympathetic qualities as well. You can understand why the Tolmekian general wants to exterminate the insects, and you can understand why Lady Eboshi wants to slay the Kami of the forest.

That’s one of the great things about Miyazaki, that he avoids using the stereotypical sneering villain. The “bad guys” usually aren’t all bad. The only exception I can think of is Laputa - and that’s something of a special case as I understand it. It was the first official Studio Ghibli film (Nausicaa was made by the same creative team, for the most part, but the studio hadn’t been founded at the time) and Miyazaki wanted the new studio to be on a good financial basis from the beginning, so he designed Laputa to be a crowd-pleaser that would make a lot of money. So he loaded it up with giant robots, lots of chases and explosions, etc. - and a really nasty villain.

 

[tomarin]

The Lupin III movie is great, and has a more complete end than most Miyazaki films get. I think I prefer Kiki because of the slice of life feel, even if she’s a witch. I like the simplicity. Same for Totoro.

Kiki, to me, is the most complete film of his, the closest one to perfection and the most novelistic in tone; it just lacks a bit of the flair of his more overtly fantastical film-worlds. That’s why I felt I had to give it an honorable mention in my first post on this thread.

 

[tomarin]

That’s one of the great things about Miyazaki, that he avoids using the stereotypical sneering villain. The “bad guys” usually aren’t all bad.

I noticed that striking quality too around the time that ‘Princess Mononoke’ came out. It’s interesting to compare Lady Eboshi (who one can come to have a grudging respect for, as she is a strong leader who does everything she can for her people) with the wizard Suliman, who I guess is the ‘big bad’ of ‘Howl’.

It’s something that I would try to emulate if I ever tried to write some fiction.