Up next from Studio Ghibli, _The Wind Rises_

http://io9.com/massive-4-minute-trailer-for-hayao-miyazakis-new-film-839742971

the early life of Jiro Horikoshi, the designer of the Zero planes used by the Japanese Imperial Navy in World War II....There are plane crashes, earthquakes, young girls vomiting blood — it's not Princess Mononoke, but neither is it Totoro.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3AekHQy6lc

I've only seen Spirited Away before this one... The images are frequently lovely, but the second half's plot is confined mostly to tuberculosis-related tearjerking and dialogue that could only swell an engineer's heart: "The prototype for the new flange is here!"

There was this brouhaha over the weekend:

http://blogs.indiewire.com/criticwire/during-boston-film-critics-vote-member-calls-the-wind-rises-morally-repugnant

I'd say this film is morally EVASIVE, whereas Zero Dark Thirty (among many) was morally repugnant.

new Ghibli film announced, Omoide no Marnie (When Marnie Was There) based on Joan G. Robinson's novel. Director is Hiromasa Yonebayashi (Arietty), slated for Japanese summer 2014. http://marnie.jp

Should I see the dubbed version of this or wait for the subtitled version to surface online?

"The prototype for the new flange is here!" GARU G'S NAN TO THREAD AMIRITE?

ha!

I didn't see this as "morally evasive" at all. It's quite clear from the film that beautiful things can be used for carnage and subjugation. Its gender politics are more troubling.

you know what disturbed the parents-with-kids audience? Its length and -- gasp -- the smoking.

I try not to call things "boring" but man, this film was boring.

I only got bored when Emily Bunt got wheeled out as a gender contrivance. Otherwise I loved it, which surprised me.

The rest was engineering nerdery, which I have absolutely zero interest in. I guess it's my fault because I knew what the film was about going in.

Werner Herzog's voice acting though. So good.

which is precisely why I loved it: more films about people working, please! I've complained about it often.

this was complete magnificent, i'm willing to admit i can put qualms about its politics aside.*

*the politics must be complicated. a lot of non-japanese have interpreted this as a whitewash, since the film only invokes (but does not depict) the many people who died thanks to the japanese bombing campaigns which featured jiro's designs. (also b/c the romance that "humanizes" him is entirely invented.) but miyazaki is known as a militant pacifist in japan, and the film even came under attack from nationalist groups--possibly just b/c of miyazaki's involvement, not because of what's actually in the movie. i think there are ways to interpret the film as simultaneously depicting events partly (largely) from jiro's POV but also providing a kind of criticism of him and the results of his monomania and self-centeredness. but I don't know if that's a willful attempt to 'rehabilitate' the film or the honest truth.

i don't see how anyone could be bored with a film of this visual imagination/richness but it takes all kinds I guess.

I loved this. It was a bit strange to watch a Miyazaki film with such a boring female love interest, though. I guess he's earned the right.

Scene after scene I would get lost in the minute details of the backgrounds.

I hope to someday watch this without the horrible JGL vox, but I doubt the original voiceover for the Herzog part could have been as great.

This film expands in my head with each week, certainly the best film of 2014 to date.

Having qualms about its politics is part of loving it.

yeah, it's the kind of film that lingers in the mind for a long while--i saw it at least two weeks ago.

also, per ghibli usual, the title song is a crazy earworm.

A few words.

Scene after scene I would get lost in the minute details of the backgrounds.

yup. all the skies! and the clouds of flame.

and on the sonic side, the hissing earthquake!

miyazaki (and takahata too) have to be the most consistent directors (in terms of their films giving me such pleasure) of the past 20 years. i even really liked watching ponyo, even though even by miyazaki standards i couldn't make heads or tails of the plot.

i feel bad for having missed so many ghibli films in theaters b/c they can be really overpowering in that environment. now that i have a blu-ray player and a sort-of-big HDTV, I'm going to collect them on Blu-Ray and give 'em a re-viewing. Nausicaa is the first up.

xposts

alfred, i'll read that when i get home. looking forward to it.

long trailer for next Ghibli film When Marnie Was There, based on Joan G. Robinson's novel and directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi (Arietty)

uh oh, When Marnie Was There could possibly be the last Ghibli film? A lot of scaremongering going on today.

Studio Ghibli's latest anime film When Marnie Was There directed by 41-year-old Hiromasa Yonebayashi opened in Japan with 461 screens on July 19 and earned a very disappointing 379,000,000 yen (about US$3,734,000) with 285,200 ticket sales in its first weekend. The result was only 42% of his first feature film The Secret World of Arrietty.

For the past couple of weeks, it has been strongly rumored that Toshio Suzuki, Ghibli's producer and co-founder, is now seriously considering the closure of the anime production division of the internationally acclaimed studio, after the retirement of his long-time colleague Hayao Miyazaki. In the latest episode of his "Ghibli Asemamire" podcast posted on June 27 before the release of the film, he actually said that the future of Ghibli depended on the results (both box office and critics) of When Marnie Was There.

Last fall, the Asahi Shimbun, one of Japan's largest papers, reported that while other animation studios have shipped jobs overseas to save money, Studio Ghibli had hired more permanent full-time employees in Japan, making the films incredibly expensive to make. Asahi reports that even though The Wind Rises had made 9.23 billion yen ($91 million), the film had apparently yet to turn a profit. The Tale of Princess Kaguya, apparently, cost even more to create.

"The Tale of Princess Kaguya from director Isao Takahata made 5.1 billion yen ($50 million), and for the studio, it was a flop," the source told News Cafe. "There's no choice but to dissolve the studio, because it's unable cross the high hurdle of announcing a new film on an annual basis."

"Suzuki-san is making a dissolution program for Ghibli," Miyazaki told Cut Magazine (via Bleeding Cool and Nausicaa.net). "No joke, we talked about it the other day. For example, Ghibli should be able to continue with about five staff members as a copyright management company even if we smash the studio. So, Ghibli can say 'We stop film production. Goodbye'. I do not have to be there."

one old grumpy man offers his opinion

http://i.imgur.com/WNe90wp.png

looks like the rumours were true :(

damn :-/

have a link? seeing a lot of chatter but couldn't find a good article.

http://www.hypable.com/2014/08/03/studio-ghibli-announces-closure/

It's a sad day. Is there any studio left making traditional animation at that level and budget?

wait I thought Miyazaki double-backed on his retirement again

False alarm!

http://kotaku.com/studio-ghibli-is-not-dead-yet-1615520289/+brianashcraft

An alternative reasoning on why it's not as bad as it sounds:

http://ca-tsuka.tumblr.com/post/93699964708/so-its-now-official-studio-ghibli-is-stopping

People still making films that are close to Ghibli levels of animation & budget are probably Mamoru Hosoda (Summer Wars, Wolf Children) and Makoto Shinkai (5cm per Second, Garden of Words).
Hosoda is the guy that Ghibli chose to direct Howl and then kicked him off the project after a few months for not meeting expectations.

Definitely will check those out; Summer Wars has been on my backlog for a long time

Summer Wars wasn't very good I thought

What happened to Yonebayashi?

thought Summer Wars looked great but was his weakest in terms of story. Girl Who Leapt Through Time & Wolf Children are really good though.
Yonebayashi directed the latest Ghibli film When Marnie Was There, who knows where he ends up if they really are closing the animation dept. would be cool if all the young animators went off and formed their own studio, there's a long tradition of that in Japan after all.

Shinkai's story telling isn't for everyone, but his films are worth watching just for the animation.
e.g. from The Garden Of Words
http://i.imgur.com/hUevXLd.gif

http://i.imgur.com/sBhDekS.gif

http://i.imgur.com/iuL1oS8.gif

looks nice. i've seen The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, really liked it

someone else worth investigating is Yasuhiro Yoshiura, who doesn't seem to have the budgets of these other guys but makes interesting stuff. Time of Eve is really good, and there is also a recent film Patema Inverted, but i haven't seen it yet. well worth watching though is his earlier short film Pale Cocoon, a dystopian sci-fi that you can legally stream for free via Crunchyroll

also loved the girl who leapt through time, will have to check out wolf children.

I've seen shinkai's five centimeters per second and found it kinda unbearably emo tbh. art style was impressive but so glossy that it kinda looked like a visual novel pc game or something to me.

but maybe I wasn't in the mood? I'd be open to trying another one, sounds like garden of words would be the place to go?

Saw this last night, was a bit nonplussed after I finished watching it, it's unusually enigmatic even for Miyazaki. But the more I think about it the more I like it; it's certainly a grown-up film, and a hugely singular one.

re the politics, I was wrestling with them as I watched it but I've since come round to thinking that Miyazaki trusts his audience enough to know dropping bombs on people from planes is bad, and leaves it up to them to reconcile the humanity of his protagonist with that fact. Films with a message of 'obviously bad thing is bad' have a tendency to be boring and preachy anyway.

I don't feel like starting a catch-all Ghibli thread, but I just want to say I really enjoyed Pom Poko (watched Monday night at the home of Jaq & Mr. Jaq). American animation would be hugely improved with wall to wall testicles.

love that movie, should be more seen

The Miyazaki docu is a great champion piece to this and Kaguya.

have we done a poll on ghibli movies?

We should.

A shame I haven't seen The Wind Rises on more ten best lists.

a November '13 release in NY/LA. Also, not that good.

Kaguya all the way.

haven't seen the wind rises, but morbs otm anyway. kaguya straight destroyed me. it's gorgeous and wholly unrepugnant, not a flange in sight.

Love them both.

I hated Ponyo.

ponyo is so supremely weird

ponyo is awesome, though not quite top-tier ghibli

What's wrong with it?

I thought it was kinda dumb, to be honest. Too many shots of the fish just squirting water at people, not a terribly compelling scenario, etc.

My young cousins, who made me watch during a Disney trip four years ago, were fascinated by it.

Ponyo is amazing, scene after scene showcasing what Miyazaki is the greatest at. Goes crazy towards the end but then many of his films do.

I thought the girl running on the waves and her huge shiny mother was great.

Keep in mind, I have no prob with the animation, I just think the script and characters are poor.

Ham! Ham! Haaaaaaaaam!

I think the old lady who kept mistaking someone (who I cant remember) for evil was funny.

ponyo is amazing, but even more than most miyazaki fims the plot seems to reinvent itself—or make up new rules—every reel, which was frustrating.

howl's moving castle has a little bit of the same problem, but i still think that's top-five miyazaki for me

"problem"

hmmm actually IMO my list might go something like

1. spirited away
2. nausicaa
3. kiki's delivery service
4. my neighbor totoro
5. princess mononoke
6. howl's moving castle
7. castle in the sky
8. porco rosso
9. the wind rises
10. ponyo
11.castle of cagliostro

btw i really like ALL of these

did i forget one?

Miyazaki films are the closet approximations to Pure Immersion in Cinema for me; the experience of watching Spirited Away, as it made itself up as it went along like a picaresque novel, was one of those moments. Noting his flaws (they're often the same, film after film) is a rote exercise.

you need to watch The Wind Rises!

oh you did -- never mind. It's contenderizer.

Ponyo is amazing, scene after scene showcasing what Miyazaki is the greatest at. Goes crazy towards the end but then many of his films do.

― abcfsk, Saturday, January 24, 2015 2:59 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I thought the girl running on the waves and her huge shiny mother was great.

― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, January 24, 2015 3:16 PM (Yesterday)

otm. gets a lot of flak for childishness, incoherence, w/e, but i think it's among ghibli's very best. funny, trippy, moving, nicely observed (the boat ride after the flood), breathtaking and, in the end, entirely satisfying.

ponyo is amazing, but even more than most miyazaki fims the plot seems to reinvent itself—or make up new rules—every reel, which was frustrating.

― I dunno. (amateurist), Sunday, January 25, 2015 3:21 PM (22 minutes ago)

we're supposed to demand that our fantasy worlds be "internally consistent", bound at every moment by whatever logic they've established prior. ponyo's cheerful "lol whatever" treatment of this convention is one of its most endearing qualities, imo.

porco rosso might be most underappreciated miyazaki

Miyazaki films are the closet approximations to Pure Immersion in Cinema for me; the experience of watching Spirited Away, as it made itself up as it went along like a picaresque novel, was one of those moments. Noting his flaws (they're often the same, film after film) is a rote exercise.

yeah, this. i find almost all of these films completely absorbing, even the ones that just sort of drift around. i find it hard to get any critical distance from them because i can enjoy sitting through any of them, even the ones i'm less fond of.

seeing these films in a cinema is pretty crucial

i mean for them to cast their spell IMO

porco rosso/wind rises go well together

where's POM POKO on that list amateurist!?

is a miyazaki list, not ghibli in general?

Porco Rosso was a clear ancestor to The Wind Rises.

xp oh, forgot that one was Takahata

Fuck a Pixar.

Perfectly possible to love both Pixar and Ghibli you know.

they admire one another, for sure.

i don't think it's hard to notice that the last few pixar movies have not been up to their earlier standard, though

Ghibli too unfortunately, although I haven't seen Takahata's new one yet.

Watched Ponyo the other night for the first time. Was bowled over, really. Just an eyepopping, crazy and sweet film. Really sublime - in many places - in the original sense of the word.

I guess I was too harsh on Pixar.

how about we have a distinct Ghibli thread (i've seen three)

by the time we start another, they'll have officially closed anyway

Studio Ponoc is a new studio set up by producer Nishimura (When Marnie Was There, Princess Kaguya) and director Yonebayashi (Arietty, When Marnie Was There).
Their first film is out next year, based on Mary Stewart's book The Little Broomstick
Trailer looks hella Ghibli as you would expect/hope

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrN9QZLmJ0E

Kaguya was absolutely magnificent. Marnie was very slight in comparison.

trailer for the first Ghibli CGI film "Earwig and the Witch", directed by Goro
https://www6.nhk.or.jp/anime/special/special.html?i=10070

noooooooooo.

noooooooooo.

― Nhex, Friday, December 4, 2020 11:15 PM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

man wtf this animation looks terrible.

My all-time biggest heart dream came true 🙏🏼♥️
ありがとうございました
Thank you @StudioGhibli for having me sing & voice a part in your new movie. Can’t wait for everybody to see this one. Coming early 2021 #EarwigandtheWitch #StudioGhibli pic.twitter.com/MgX6Ur7Rqz

— K A C E Y (@KaceyMusgraves) December 15, 2020

uhhhhhhh wut?!?

pic.twitter.com/RZ74q04w7J

— スタジオジブリ STUDIO GHIBLI (@JP_GHIBLI) November 10, 2022

My Neighbor Chewbacca

Was it a mistake to start this thread on ILF instead of ILE?

Thank the boiler man, you idiot, for this Studio Ghibli thread

they're just making a short for the next round of "Star Wars Visions" i think

If anyone can bring an end to all the star wars, it's Miyazaki.

spirited to a galaxy far, far away

this is essentially a screensaver btw

Yeah, my son who has loved Star Wars and been a recent convert to Studio Ghibli was extremely disappointed in the brevity.