Favourite Miyazaki film

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!

might fuck around and rewatch PONYO (2008)

actually i already started, love how utterly fkn wired and exhausted her dad looks from the get-go

he's all jacked up on that elixir.

also how recklessly sosuke's mum drives, she reminds me of mine getting me to school in like 1969 lol

Rewatched Ponyo with daughters yesterday - it's #2 daughter's fave now - and was struck again by the sheer loveliness of their little boat put-putting over the flooded motorways as the Cambrian fishies ("IT'S DEVONICUS!") loom beneath them.

semi-convinced that there's a thread in ponyo -- part visual part story-content -- that goes back to a rupert the bear story i dragged my old rupert annuals off their high shelf and finally checked, and tbh (a) no, the two elements i thought were in one single story are in two quite unrelated stories (rupert at greyrocks cove in 1961, rupert and the whistlefish in 1969, if yr keeping count) so i think my grand theory fails BUT someone at ghibli nevetheless reads rupert the bear books imo

j forgot what b was, i think it's somewhere in what i wrote

Halfway through Pom Poko, <3 <3 <3 (those are hearts not racoon balls.) Wasn't expecting a rendition of the best non M.R. James ghost story Mujina, turns out Mujina is another word for raccoon (raccoon dog, techinally).

We watched Pom poko last week and it manages to balance the watership down sadness, with being absolutely hilarious.

I should read more tanuki mythology.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-tanuki-japan-s-trickster-god

There’s some great tanuki testicle tricks ukioe prints in that article.

yeah, either the sombre narration (though not untempered with dry humour) or the WBesque raccoons would be too much by themselves. was trying to place the narrator but i had to look it up in the end: "what are the raccoons going to do tonight? the same thing they do every night pinky: try to take over the world!"

i saw princess raccoon at the ica a while back, with several fellow ex-ilxors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Raccoon

the story i remember little of, the sense of ramshackle panto-level mise-en-scene lingers more strongly

not Miyasaki, not even Ghibli, but Studio Ponoc's Mary and the Witch's Flower

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_and_the_Witch%27s_Flower

is on film4 currently. so i guess it'll start on film4+1 in ~40 minutes.

not seen it but it is well regarded.

(which is based on another english children's book)

This is on Netflix in the US, pretty good movie.

Whisper of the heart: did not finish.

Then you missed her awesome story she wrote

i skipped through and found an intro and another scene but hardly a story - is there stuff that's narrated but not shown?

apologies for my disrespectful treatment of ghibli/miyazaki.

it's kondō (rip)!

i saw that on the big screen a month or so before the theaters all closed, and found it very soothing and charming and absorbing and unique (?). nice chill slice of life, the coming-of-age of a creative person but without any forced crises or overblown obstacles. the family doesn't always get her but they're supportive, the biggest problem is a snafu with a friend whose crush likes the wrong person, etc. i was also very ready for it to be done when it was done, and didn't much love the ending, but idk it put me in a very nice mood. prob not for everyone tho, and def doesn't scratch the same itches as miyazaki.

continued apologies for disrespectful treatment of kondō (though miyazaki did write the screenplay).

I was looking forward to The Wind Rises (spoilers follow), I wasn't aware of any controversy and vaguely thought it was universally acclaimed. The opening was charming, all the dream sequences delightful, the sound design outstanding. But I had misgivings early on; in the earthquake and fire he saves the woman because he's a Good Guy but he's materially and emotionally unaffected by the devastation - the library's on fire as he arrives at the university but he laughs it off, books are replaceable after all. I kept on waiting for some moral payback from his war work but it never came, aside from a platitude about the pyramids and the aeroplane graveyard at the end. His colleague and friend recognises the poverty caused by the government's economic policy but happily accepts their paycheck and ultimately dismisses the idea that they are in the arms trade. And then there's Jiro calmly working long hours away from home and late into the night at home on his machines of death as his wife basically lies dying beside him. I found Miyazaki's choices here disappointing, considering the strong sense of humanity and anti-war themes in the rest of his filmography.

When Marnie was There: emo girl gets pally with ghost. 'Emo girl' is reductive and unfair but she's a cartoon so that's ok. I stuck with this but it never transcended its obvious young adult themes, though the ending was pretty moving.

The Tale of Princess Kaguya. Loved the drawing style except for the caricatured characters - the giant headed mum, the pointy headed tutor, the pointy chinned emperor - which I hated. Good story.

only watched the beginning, but a 30 min bts/doc about Kiki's location/inspiration in Stockholm & Visby.

https://vimeo.com/386087768

This now-cafe was the inspiration for Gütiokipänjä Bakery.

https://goo.gl/maps/8rgAjWcBcMjeG1hk6

HM's comments: https://vimeo.com/45200524

For USA people: HBOMax is offering a free 7-day trial and they have the complete Ghibli collection.

(even graveyard? that was missing from the netflix uk list iirc)

Apparently not fireflies yet

It's on Hulu if that makes any difference...

it probably does to HBO, which explains what's going on there.