Favourite Miyazaki film

a good thing abt tales of earthsea is it made me reread the first three books

only good thing to say about that movie probably (haven't/won't see that)

we watched Mononoke on Sunday. I will still say Spirited Away is my #1 Miyazaki, and possibly the best movie I've ever seen, but Mononoke is unfuckwithable, original in every frame, subtly plotted, making the case for it over Spirited Away would be easy to do.

i probably will now rewatch it at some point: as weak cover versions of strong books sometimes can it puts in yr mind things you hadn't really thought abt, like actually how spartan cultural life seems to be in the book version of the archipelago (spartan not being a mode ghibli handles well, le guin is fine with it)

any version of Earthsea where Ged isn't dark-skinned is p fucked up tbh

hard agree. haven't seen any adaptations - if Ged is light-skinned it really takes some of the punch out of the white blond people being the scary primitive Other.

I don't feel like I ever got the hang of Princess Mononoke I have to say.

Maybe having been introduced to Miyazaki via the one-two punch of Spirited/Howls left me with expectations of all his films being bonkers maximalist masterpieces, so coming to films like Mononoke and Totoro later on left me slightly underwhelmed as they're a lot more understated.

a good thing abt tales of earthsea is it made me reread the first three books

why not tehanu? a) it is used in the film; ii) it's the best one.

weird i would consider princess mononoke way more of a bonkers maximalist masterpiece than spirited away

spirited away takes place in a bonkers otherwordly place but has a very understated time in it imo

otm, whereas Mononoke has like six factions, heads getting lopped off all sorts of people, no definite villains except maybe the local lord besieging Irontown, and the dang forest spirit, the weirdest guy of all

spirited away's big spectacle sequences feel bigger & more overwhelming to me than mononoke's

maybe that's because the baseline is lower though!

why not tehanu? a) it is used in the film; ii) it's the best one

bcz no copy in the house

get one forthwith, and the next two, and join me in the earthsea thread to discuss the greatest hegelian thesis/antithesis/synthesis in literature.

my wife announced to us all that she'd never seen Spirited Away despite it being one of the kids' favourite films growing up!we're not sure how she could have been always out of the room when it was on, going to rectify it later

Watched Nausicaa & Mononoke in quick succession. I really wanted to like Nausicaa more, it looked fantastic and I was instantly drawn into its world, however although most of his films drop you into the middle of a unique and fully realised world it usually serves as setting to a more universal story - even when it's as integral as in Spirited Away things are rarely explained, you just have to take them as they come. By contrast this had too much exposition and the story, especially the climax, relied too much on the invented quasi-mystical ecology. Also it was too damn long and at some points it seemed like 'young girl yells at giant insects: the movie'. Some great moments though, especially the giant at the end.

Also within the first few minutes I thought 'wtf this looks like the work of Moebius'; turns out Miyazaki directed it "under Moebius' influence" (his (or translator's) words, apols to mark s). Great interview between the two of them here: http://www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/interviews/miyazaki_moebious.html

Mononoke was also too long, also featured a protagonist overly fond of yelling, this one way more annoying than Nausicaa. Even though she was eeeeeevil the Lady Eboshi was much more likeable, as was the mercenary monk, though of all the Engish dubs I've seen/heard so far Billy Bob Thornton's voice is the only one I've thought was really out of place. The eldritch Forest Spirit was great and the "I'm going to show you how to kill a god" scene was awesome. I couldn't really get behind the more conventional aspects, a lot of dashing around on horseback (or elkback) with no real sense of peril.

and re: kiki from upthread:

kiki is a way more anxiety-inducing watch than it should be

yes! i am perhaps unusually anxious about lateness/missed appointments but dropping the package in the forest/dithering around at the old lady's and missing the party gave me palpitations.

> Also it was too damn long

it's only about 40% of the book(s). i think it was made after volume 2 and it ended up as 5 volumes. this or laputa is probably my favourite.

> Mononoke

english text by neil gaiman. terrible violent thing.

> kiki is a way more anxiety-inducing

that propeller-bicycle at the end looks like a deathtrap

lady eboshi is not strictly evil, that's part of the point

it's always hard to convert an epic manga series into a watchable movie... nausicaa does a pretty good job imo, considering what a feat that is... on the other hand, akira, while a fun movie, feels like a trailer compared to the manga it's based on

lady eboshi is not strictly evil, that's part of the point

she's not an ahem cartoon villain, sure. i don't think caring for the people of irontown or even the lepers are huge points in her favour though.

this seems like a good thing to lower your blood pressure
https://ghibli.fandom.com/wiki/Iblard_Jikan
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xpn1g7

rewatching ARRIETTY (2011)

i love how much she adores her dad and is excited by his skills and him being deadpan stoic back at her

Have vented on this before, but find Arrietty almost impossible to watch, in large part because of the UK English dub. Also #1 daughter watched it a lot as a 4 year old and took to addressing me and her mum as "Mother?" and "Father?" in that piercingly insufferable middle class tone, often while we were wheeling her around Streatham Sainsbury's.

i'm watching it subbed so luckily this isn't an issue

as a uk english person who used to read the uk english books i thought it was fine except for the boy. was a bit of a shock at first but then a relief from all the american dubs. olivia colman was pretty good.

wild theory: Shou (the boy) is actually pregnant...

Don’t be silly

rewatching LAPUTA (1984) as i break down to make some room in my flat

tentative critical observation so far: tintin is one visual ancestor (see also KIKI) and YELLOW SUBMARINE another

tintin ancestry comes in by way of lupin iii surely

maybe yeah

The dub version of Kiki that's on Netflix is the one with the terrible corny music and the extraneous OTT Phil Hartman dialogue that was eventually pared down. Sucks for folks who will know this version best.

oh we watched it the other day and u remember thinking I didn't remember all that stuff

The dub version of Kiki that's on Netflix is the one with the terrible corny music and the extraneous OTT Phil Hartman dialogue that was eventually pared down.

I've never seen it before so don't know what to compare it with, but it doesn't have the "I can talk again!" line at the end that forks rails about.

https://www.quora.com/Did-Hayao-Miyazaki-really-say-that-anime-was-a-mistake?share=1
Some really funny stuff in here, sure some of you have heard it already but there's some stuff I didnt know. I think he's right about a lot of things but it's often a bit too sweeping. I've heard that he doesn't even like his work being called anime.

I used to think that all japanese animation was called anime but apparently that's not the case. I would like to know if anyone could clarify this.

ponyo (the only good film) is now on netflix

obviously i am watching it, i will always watch it

anime as the term is used in the west just means any animation produced in japan

I can't remember who it was that said differently. Might be something like the way people said gekiga is not manga?

when lisa and sosuke are fleeing the tsunami in the little pink car and ponyo is running on top of the storm fishwaves is the most exciting scene in cinema history sorry if this offends

also the high stylisation of the sea

ponyo is running on top of the storm fishwaves is the most exciting scene in cinema history

it is certainly the most exciting scene in the film. it is a very good scene! the whole thing, from the old folks home to the house. lisa's driving is terrifying. love how calmly accepting she is at the end, 'my son's favourite human-faced fish has turned into a little girl, ok'. tina fey is a+ voice talent in this.

watched howls, it is now in my top 4. sure the end with the scarecrow/prince is hugely out of the blue but till then it almost matches spirited away for a wild thrill ride. As usual with Miyazaki there is a wealth of detail and a dearth of explanation (this is good not bad), e.g. all the childhood ephemera in Howl's bedroom. The only thing I thought was unduly skipped over was a scene with the witch of the waste: after she's had her powers taken she becomes entirely simple, except briefly after Sophie's mum visits she perks up, deals with the black wriggly spy thing, smokes a cigar and says she wants a little chat with Howl - but then she goes right back to being simple and it's not mentioned again. I've started reading the book, will be interesting to see how much of this is fleshed out. Already some major changes - Sophie's sisters are dispensed with, Howl saves Sophie from sleazy pickup guys but in the book he is the sleazy pickup guy!

... also love how sophie occasionally wavers between an old woman/a not so old woman/her normal younger self.

The film takes a sharp left turn from the book round about the time Sophie meets the King, iirc. It's more 'inspired by' than 'based on' from that point on.

@mark s:

I mentioned upthread that Ponyo might dip a little too deep into the well of Northern European folklore (HC Anderson/R Wagner) for the typical Ghibli fan. Did you find it a more "classics"-informed tale than the other Ghibli films you've watched?

you said before yes but i'm not sure i get it? (well i get HCR i guess somewhat but wagner? do i just not know enough abt the submarines in wagner?)

on the whole ponyo seems *less* european to me than many of the others (if european means euro kidlit across the 20th century, which they are full of): its setting is the tsunami-threatened present-day japanese coastline, with warning loudhailers on poles and etc

i agree that it's a little different from the rest of studio ghibli tho

the Ponyo score pretty much co-ops Wagner's Walkürenritt for Ponyo's "tsunami" chase, from the part of the opera when Brunhilde and her valkyrie sisters are trying to return the One Ring to the Rhine.

ah ok!