Favourite Miyazaki film

i revisited totoro a few weeks ago and boy did i cry

totoro >>>>>>>>

totoro is just a bit plotless and kiddyish for me. it has moments, but i can't even really relate to it on a child-like level because there's not enough of a moving-along of the plot and a lot of drifty, waity parts.

that's why it's great! it's not a story it's an environment!

even so, i've never found it as absorbing as, say, Spirited Away which really is its own environment. Totoro is kind of pedestrian on the whole, with just these little cat things in the background who do, what, barely anything except sleep and fly around?

totoro is about being a child and transitioning through that magical ability to stay in a constant state of hallucination and wonder at the simple world

I acknowledge that's something that happens as a kid, but not really in the way it does in Totoro. So it feels more like an adult's take on childhood that rings a bit false to me.

for what it's worth, it resonated as accurate in my experience... though perhaps that's rose colored hindsight

even so, i've never found it as absorbing as, say, Spirited Away which really is its own environment. Totoro is kind of pedestrian on the whole, with just these little cat things in the background who do, what, barely anything except sleep and fly around?

your heart is cold

my little brother has grown up on miyazaki, princess mononoke was his favourite from a pretty young age. warmed my heart a bit how much he took to them.

these little cat things in the background who do, what, barely anything except sleep and fly around?

OK now you're describing me

forks otm, totoro is the only movies which perfectly captures my sense of being a young kid and endlessly fascinated by the mysteries of my neighbourhood and the local woods

maybe it has something to do with a rural youth upbringing?

i dunno, kids are pretty good at finding magic in mundane places no matter where they are

magical ability to stay in a constant state of hallucination and wonder at the simple world

I don't remember ever having this capacity!

one of my earliest memories is racing Mr. Rogers to my preschool alongside my mother's car. he was riding a bicycle. afterwards we shook hands and had interviews with the attending press. I also remember going to the zoo and seeing a tiger the size of a house walking around in an enclosure. Those are actual solid memories from childhood that come to mind that are surely hallucinations. I was probably about five.

yeah i have a lot of similarly crazy/impossible memories from childhood that i've assumed for years were dreams, but i find it hard to believe i'd remember dreams so vividly after decades. kids definitely live in a somewhat different world than the rest of us.

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/jun/07/childhood-hallucinations-common-research-psychotic-schizophrenia-why

i had a LOT of hallucinations as a kid; mostly just audio hallucinations these days

Oh don't get me wrong, I had a very active mind as a kid (and still do to some extent although logic tends to win me over) but Totoro somehow doesn't quite sum it up. Spirited Away is more in line with that strange dream/wake logic I think. I mean, I'd get freaked out by patterns in wood or be convinced there was a demon in the garage or whatever but Totoro feels forced and not enough at the same time. Sweet film, but sweet doesn't cur it quite enough. I'd it supposed to be more of a kids' film or an adult film?

https://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2015/08/371632.html

had a horrible feeling that was going to lead me to an obituary so *phew* i'm very glad that is not the case

Just watched "The Castle of Cagliostro" for the first time, it was terrific. It is Miyazaki's first full length film and is a sort of James Bond-style action comedy taking place in a fantastical moving castle, with several scenes directly referenced in the NES Castlevania. There is an amazing car chase, and secret trap doors, and a counterfeit money operation (which Speilberg probably ripped off for the Goonies), and a bunch of ninjas, and an epic battle on the face of the clock tower, and so much more. The whole time, of course, the artwork is utterly beautiful.

http://www.lasertimepodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Image-1.jpg

I always mean to revisit that one! I saw it early in my first wash of anime fandom, on a second- or third-generation tape; it might in fact be my first Miyazaki. I recall it being a fun romp and yet I've never gotten around to revisiting it beyond the first couple of minutes.

I remember seeing that as a kid back in the '80s when I had no idea what anime was, it was mind-blowing. For some reason I've never watched it as an adult, should correct that. I think TCoC and Starzinger were my first contacts with anime, but like I said, I was 8 or 9 and didn't know what they were or that they were even made in Japan (they were dubbed versions, of course), just that they were way different from the kids' cartoons we had on local television.

love lupin's style and esp green jacket

love cagliostro

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-40128846

Japanese animation giant Studio Ghibli has unveiled plans for a theme park to open in 2020.
The 200-hectare site will be built in Nagoya city, in Aichi prefecture, said Governor Hideaki Omura on Thursday at a press conference.
The park will be based on the popular film My Neighbor Totoro, embodying the movie's theme of "respecting and embracing nature".
The site of the park, previously the home of the 2005 World Expo, currently has a life-size replica of the house from the film.
Co-founder of Studio Ghibli and producer Toshio Suzuki who was also at the announcement, said the attraction will be "set in the world of Totoro". There will not be any amusement park rides.
"Construction will be planned around existing clearings to avoid felling trees," Governor Omura said.

Nora is a big fan of Kiki and Totoro. Totoro is magical; whoever said up-thread that it's not a story, it's an environment, is spot on. Nothing really happens, you just kind of hang out in that emotional, magical space for 80 minutes. I remember liking films where not much happens, plot-wise, as a kid. I often get frustrated myself by films that start of by establishing an environment that I'd like to remain in, and then move it on via plot to something I'm less interested in. But one of my favourite films if Koyanisqaatsi, so there you go.

i was delighted to find that there's a Totoro reference in Persona 5.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C8oi9hlXYAAFGtf.jpg

Man, I love watching documentaries about Studio Ghibli, poor Miyazaki wandering around, all grumpy and in a perpetual existential crisis -

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/ondemand/video/3004569/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqD-pIoHGj0

took me about 20 years to realize kiki is about depression

kiki is so fucking incredible

That would be my vote for favourite Miyazaki film. It's perfect.

Kiki celebrates 30 years tomorrow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iH32qCUowew

https://www.fathomevents.com/events/studio-ghibli-fest-2019-kikis-delivery-service

Kiki still the best in my book.

Such a sweet film. It's so cozy.

It's not the most ambitious but it's definitely the one that's given me the most feels. Really helped me out of a deep funk I was in when I first saw it

I think the only big-hitter Miyazaki I never gelled with was Princess Mononoke. It feels very jumbled and there's something missing from the storyline for me. You could say the same about Howl's Moving Castle, but I guess there are so many twists and turns to that film to keep it moving along, it doesn't really matter

that yumi arai video - incredible!

not sure any film means more to me than kiki; so beautiful, so practical

what a cool witch

there's so many wonderful things about it... the animation's consistently lovely and in the case of the broom-flying it's breathtaking. the town and the world are so warm and good, such that the moments when they still fall short and let kiki down, it's extra heartbreaking in the most believable, i've-been-there way. jiji (in japanese) is one of the all-time great movie cats. and yes, deep funks: what a smart, beautiful, unforced way to talk about what a funk like that feels like, and how they don't necessarily last forever, in a way that can speak to children (without talking down to them) and maybe even more deeply to adults. it's a movie i avoid rewatching too often for fear of spoiling its magic, but also one where every time i do watch it (usually to share it with a new person), i love it all over again.

otm

imo kiki is the most perfect work of art about depression

thought it was about puberty but tomato tomato

it's also rather elegantly about talent and careers/passions/purposes, and our emotional relationships to these things, how much our feelings about them intertwine with how fulfilling the rest of our lives are and vice versa. also man that bread looks delicious.

I coincidentally saw this for the first time over the weekend. Really lovely.

the animation's consistently lovely and in the case of the broom-flying it's breathtaking.

Yeah, the bustling city and countryside are so beautifully and naturally rendered. It really captures the imagination like nothing else.

https://media1.giphy.com/media/fgi8MEo6WCdtm/source.gif

The Studio Ghibli Easter Eggs of Kiki's Delivery Service... #1: a Ghibli bus, just missing Kiki as she flies around town. 👇 pic.twitter.com/xblznK4LqS

— Film4 (@Film4) July 31, 2018

My favorite easter egg is that if you zoom in on the map she holds up when she's delivering the cat in the cage, all the names of the towns/neighborhoods/features are real places in Hawai'i.