Studio Ghibli

[on:]

I've just recently discovered the awesome world of Hayao Miyazaki.  I'm seen four of his films, and plan to see the others eventually.  I really love Castle in the Sky, Spirited Away and The Castle of Cagliostro, all I give solid A's.  I thought Howl's Moving Castle was okay, but gave it a B.  Plan to see My Neighbor Totoro next.  I know Miyazaki has written for films like Whisper of the Heart and The Secret World of Arrietty, but he didn't direct them.  What are your three favorite films from Miyazaki?

[Reply #1 on:]

I'm not a huge anime fan, but when I was young, Spirited Away was on Cartoon Network. I watched it, and it was awesome! It had such a cool feeling to it, especially the whole train part when it was over water. Truly a magical film. Besides that, I really can't stand anime.

[Reply #2 on:]

I'm not a huge anime fan, but when I was young, Spirited Away was on Cartoon Network. I watched it, and it was awesome! It had such a cool feeling to it, especially the whole train part when it was over water. Truly a magical film. Besides that, I really can't stand anime.

I wasn't really a big anime fan myself.  I did love watching the two Unico films from the 80's as a kid and never knew they were anime.  I've seen Akira, Vampire Hunter D and its sequel and thought they were good.  Miyazaki films are just awesome, I don't see them as anime films, but rather just really awesome films.

[Reply #3 on:]

I've only seen two movies out of this, Ponyo and Spirited Away.
Howl's Moving Castle was on TV the other day but I didn't notice it till I was scanning through the channels in the final 10 minutes of the movie

[Reply #4 on:]

I've seen Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle. I adored Spirited Away, I thought it was magical and fun. I just couldn't get into Howl's Moving Castle at all though, the dialogue was ridiculously overwrought and the plot was all over the place.

[Reply #5 on:]

I've seen all Ghibli movies and own them all, most even several time.
I've also seen many pre-Ghibli Miyazaki movies (The Castle of Cagliostro, Horus: Prince of the Sun, Panda Kopanda...)
My favourite is hard to pin down since it depends what mood I am in for a movie. It's also worth it to check out the non-Miyazaki Ghibli movies. Though some (especially My Neighbours the Yamadas) can be hard to understand a lot about due to cultural differences.

[Reply #6 on:]

I have enjoyed all the Ghibli films I have seen but there is something about My Neighbor Totoro that always makes me smile, so it gets my vote.

[Reply #7 on:]

Spirited Away was actually the first anime I ever watched fully so I'm glad it's got the most amount of votes

[Reply #8 on:]

It is difficult to pick just three as I love them all; in the end I voted for Totoro, Kiki and Laputa though

[Reply #9 on:]

There is a rumour that 2013 will be the big Ghibli Summer.
It's possible that both, Isao Takahata's long-awaited feature film ("The Story of the Bamboo Cutter") and Hayao Miyazaki's new movie (probably based on the 2009 "Kaze Tachinu" comic) will both come out then.
It's also quite possibly that those these movies will be the final directorial  feature films by Takahata and Miyazaki, even more so since they are already 75 and 71 respectively.

Of course it's complete speculation as of now, but it wouldn't surprise me at all.


If it comes like that it seems that their successors will be Hiromasa Yonebayashi who made "The Borrower Arrietty " (can only advice everyone to go see it.).
And of course Gorō Miyazaki who made "Tales from Earthsea" with little success, but whose last Ghibli movie "From up on Poppy Hill" seems to have been hugely successful in Japan and was well liked among critics too.

[Reply #10 on:]

Feel silly for missing my other two votes so Spirted Away and Castle in the Sky.

Also, listen to Booze and see Arrietty.  Not sure what the American dub is like but the British dub was pretty good.

[Reply #11 on:]

Or just watch the Japanese version, it's not really that hard to get used to subtitles.



Also at fryfanSpyOrama & the thread name: could it be changed to just The Studio Ghibli thread or something like that?

[Reply #12 on:]

Preaching to the choir,  I prefer subtitles but they did a decent job on the dub is all.

[Reply #13 on:]

I hate all of them.

No, really.

[Reply #14 on:]

Or just watch the Japanese version, it's not really that hard to get used to subtitles.



Also at fryfanSpyOrama & the thread name: could it be changed to just The Studio Ghibli thread or something like that?

I probably should've but I've only just discovered this filmmaker and didn't know the name of studio by heart.  Just saw My Neighbor Totoro and thought it was okay, but I was a little disappointed that the character Totoro hardly does anything other than scream and call for the cat bus thing.  I was sort of expecting something like E. T. where he tries to see how the girls live.  I really loved the kids, they felt realistic and emotional real.  I liked the whole only kids being able to see Totoro, but don't really use that to the film's advantage.  I also wish they have developed more with the boy liking Satsuki, it's hinted but never followed up.  This film was a little more kid friendly than Miyazaki's other films which are more fun for the whole family.  Have to give Totoro a B just for being really entertaining with the family but not so much with Totoro.

[Reply #15 on:]

I think Totoro exploring the family's house would not make any sense. He's been living in the forest probably for ages and the house had been empty for a while. So if he was interested in houses he would have had more than enough time to explore it.
The movie, while named after him, isn't really about him either. It's more autobiographical since Miyazki's mother spent a few years in the hospital (caused by tuberculosis) when Miyazaki was just 6 years old.
So it's mainly about kids having to cope with a sick family member and while being selfish and wanting their mother to be at home and be there for them have to accept that that won't happen for a while. They're also encountering the idea of death and a loved one maybe dying for the first time ever in their lives (especially Mei). Totoro is more of a distraction from it and a mean to make the new place to live more exciting too. And in the end of course he is there to help Satsuki finding Mei (with the cat bus).

The scenes in the credits are also implying that the the kids can't see Totoro anymore since the mother came home. So he was really ever only a very short term part in the girl's lives.

[Reply #16 on:]

I really need to see more of these movies, but the discs here are so expensive I might have to go find that Japanese dvd store in the city and find the $10 ones. Who needs the dubbed versions? No one, that's who.

[Reply #17 on:]

The amount I enjoy a Ghibli movie is directly proportional to the number of flying things portrayed.  Thus, my three favorite are Howl's Moving Castle, Nausicaa and Porco Rosso.

[Reply #18 on:]

Usually when I'm watching a Ghibli movie, I kind of feel that they could use a good 20 mins or so removed. I know that some of the meandering and playing around that the films do is part of what makes them so attractive to children, and am forced to conclude that I'm either too old for this sort of thing, or that there is just no time for joy in my life.

[Reply #19 on:]

Howl's Moving Castle is my fave, I really love that one. Something about the way the castle is animated and designed, plus the animation in the rest of it is sublime. Interesting story too. Second would probably be Princess Mononoke, that's the one I've watched the most. I also like Spirited Away a lot too. I only recently saw My Neighbor Totoro, and I really enjoyed that too, especially the Cat Bus!...

[Reply #20 on:]

The animation in all of them is vile, as is the case with 99% of anime.

Please note that I'm talking about the animation, not the artwork and individual drawings.

But seriously, the consistently abysmal frame-rate renders the animation absolutely abhorrent.

[Reply #21 on:]

I'm not all that into anime, but I freakin' love Studio Ghibli! The best looking animation i've ever seen. To considering to the fact that i'm an animator in training, these films really inspire me. 

[Reply #22 on:]

The animation is shit. As an aspiring animator myself, I find it genuinely offensive stuff.

You can literally see each individual frame as it moves with the naked eye.

If you want to see some truly beautiful animation, watch something like The Iron Giant or The Illusionist.

[Reply #23 on:]

Other studios inspire me too, like Warner Bros., Disney, and all that good stuff. Those flims you just listed are some of the best. But I guess we're all entitled to our own opinions.

[Reply #24 on:]

turnip: What are you? Some pretentious hipster douchebag?


And before you answer: yes, this is a rhetorical question, so don't bother.

[Reply #25 on:]

In my experience, Ghibli is something that appeals to pretentious, hipster douchebags so I'm not really sure what you're getting at.

And for the record, that wasn't an answer, it was a related statement.

[Reply #26 on:]

Aww, aren't you adorable.
You seriously can't go any more mainstream with anime studios than Ghibli. It's so far from hipster as it possible goes.

[Reply #27 on:]

In other words, Ghibli movies are to be watched on a MacBook Air whilst in Starbucks...

[Reply #28 on:]

Aww, aren't you adorable.
You seriously can't go any more mainstream with anime studios than Ghibli. It's so far from hipster as it possible goes.

Hipsters don't do the real underground stuff, though. They only tend to skim the surface of this area of culture.

I'm not saying everyone that likes anime is a hipster, just that most hipsters that I know love studio Ghibli and I doubt that's just because I know an unusual bunch of hipsters. They're classic hipster films because whilst they're mainstream for anime they're still very far from being mainstream films.

You know, in the same way that Troll 2 and The Room are mainstream as far as "so bad they're good" films.

And I'm also not saying that hipsters only like Ghibli and don't often like other areas of anime.

[Reply #29 on:]

Maybe they're far from mainstream in America... but who cares about America? No one, THAT'S WHO.

And comparing them to Troll 2 and The Room shows just how little you know.

[Reply #30 on:]

If you want to see some truly beautiful animation, watch something like The Iron Giant or The Illusionist.

Both films (in respect to the animation alone here) remind me of the TV-quality Disney stuff from the late eighties and early nineties, as well as the nineties Warner Bros stuff. Having just taken a quick look into it, I see that many of the same names are involved.

It's the sort of stuff that studios have been cranking out since the forties. Sure, it's got very few problems. But it's hardly spellbindingly good.

I'm not going to defend anything else in comparison, I'm just pointing out that they're hardly "truly beautiful animation" unless you consider something like a midrange family sedan by Ford to be a "truly beautiful automobile" (and almost anybody who is way too into cars will tell you to go fuck yourself because you have no sense of what constitutes beauty if you do).

Ghibli's animation style is not the worst thing in Japanese animation, and in most cases, the subject matter rises above the (again, very few) flaws that the presentation has (and some of these are inherantly limited by the actual art style in Ghibli works).

As an "aspiring animator" yourself, I would have thought you'd be capable of knowing and appreciating this. Obviously you're the kind of aspiring animator who believes that if you don't personally love something to pieces, it's not really a valid form of artistic expression. Those people really suck. They're the ones who ruin perfectly good entertainment by making you pay attention to the most trivial and banal details that you're meant to gloss over as you enjoy the ride.

[Reply #31 on:]

Seriously, who pissed in your Cheerios this morning?

[Reply #32 on:]

As part of my animation and design classes, at the end of 2nd or 3rd year we have an optional study trip to Japan. We go to the Ghibli museum.
I just thought I'd share this, sounds like the best study trip ever in my opinion.
Hear that? Animation classes. As in, surprisingly the Ghibli style is good enough for animation students!

[Reply #33 on:]

The museum is just beautiful. Perfectly done indeed. I will definitely go back some day.

[Reply #34 on:]

Aww, aren't you adorable.
You seriously can't go any more mainstream with anime studios than Ghibli. It's so far from hipster as it possible goes.

Hipsters don't do the real underground stuff, though. They only tend to skim the surface of this area of culture.

I'm not saying everyone that likes anime is a hipster, just that most hipsters that I know love studio Ghibli and I doubt that's just because I know an unusual bunch of hipsters. They're classic hipster films because whilst they're mainstream for anime they're still very far from being mainstream films.

You know, in the same way that Troll 2 and The Room are mainstream as far as "so bad they're good" films.

And I'm also not saying that hipsters only like Ghibli and don't often like other areas of anime.

Must be sad when hipsters you know have better taste than you.

[Reply #35 on:]

Maybe they're far from mainstream in America... but who cares about America? No one, THAT'S WHO.

Who said anything about America? My main cultural point of reference is the UK.

And comparing them to Troll 2 and The Room shows just how little you know.

Based on what? Both films are films within a genre or at least an area of film that have pretty strong cult fan-bases to the point that there's very much a community of fans of those films. It's a completely sound comparison.

If you want to see some truly beautiful animation, watch something like The Iron Giant or The Illusionist.

Both films (in respect to the animation alone here) remind me of the TV-quality Disney stuff from the late eighties and early nineties, as well as the nineties Warner Bros stuff. Having just taken a quick look into it, I see that many of the same names are involved.

I'm sorry but that's balls. They stand head and shoulders above that stuff. There are similarities just as there were similarities between Disney's straight-to-video sequels and their canon "Disney classics" - not to mention lots of people working on both. It doesn't stop Disney from having consistently gorgeous animation vs the fairly cheap by comparison stuff they did on TV.

It's the sort of stuff that studios have been cranking out since the forties. Sure, it's got very few problems. But it's hardly spellbindingly good.

There's some fucking stunning animation from the forties. Pretty much all of Disney's work from that era is proof of it.

Ghibli's animation style is not the worst thing in Japanese animation, and in most cases, the subject matter rises above the (again, very few) flaws that the presentation has (and some of these are inherantly limited by the actual art style in Ghibli works).

I never said otherwise. Ghibli's stuff tends to be better looking than most Japanese animation but that doesn't make it good. And yes, a story and content can carry a film in spite of it having horrendous animation. South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut is proof of this, as is Ghibli's Grave of the Fireflies which has some of their worst animation that I've seen.

Obviously you're the kind of aspiring animator who believes that if you don't personally love something to pieces, it's not really a valid form of artistic expression.

Ghibli's stuff is not good animation from a technical standpoint. I never said it wasn't valid artistic expression. Placing a urinal in an art-gallery is valid artistic expression, but if you started saying that it showcased brilliant sculpture-making skills then you'd be bound to piss off people who actually are very good sculpters. I find beauty in things like industrial estates but I'd also admit that they're conventionally ugly and Ghibli's work - and indeed, 99% of anime - is conventionally ugly animation.
And this isn't just because I don't like Ghibli films as a general rule. I didn't like Coraline but it was stunning beautiful on a purely aesthetic level.

[Reply #36 on:]

So you have bad taste, I don't feel that is cause for celebration or a need to rub in the rest of our faces.  I was quite happy when my knowledge wasn't smeared with your stupidity.

[Reply #37 on:]

Make sure to let us know if you ever get hired for doing animation, so we can be sure to avoid the atrocities you surely will create.



And now lets stop this and keep it on topic!


We all know this pic would be posted sooner or later, so I might as well just get it over with:

[Reply #38 on:]

As someone who actually pays attention to Frame-rates in animation, I honestly don't know where you're coming from with this, Turnip. Ghibli, by and large, moves fine. Not as smooth as Disney film quality, true, but a long ways better than television quality (Japanese or Western).


I kind of have to second the fact that anime certainly went through a period of hipster-appeal. It's slackened off in the last few years, but there was a time in the early-to-mid 2000's when it was the hip, alternative thing (I blame kids growing up with Pokemon, myself). As someone who'd followed anime since it was something only weirdos and kiddie-fiddlers in the 80's watched, I was in two minds about the whole thing, but it's not worth worrying about too much anymore - the West has taken what they wanted from anime, and soon the medium itself will fade into the distant background of our collective consciousness (how's THAT for pretencious! )

[Reply #39 on:]

Well there is one point I sort of agree with Turnip on and that is Anime is UK.  At least from what I have seen, anime remains a semi fringe.  I say semi because most are aware of the stuff aimed at children (Naruto, Pokemon ect) but there seems to be far less awareness of the wider spectrum that is out there.  That said it is considerable better than when I was growing up, where you had to stay up until silly o'clock to see Akira or Winds of Amnesia.  This could be one of the reasons why some people have the idea that all Japanese animation is bad when the majority of the stuff they see is quickly produced tv shows (ie most American animated shows will have 22 episodes in a year and these shows will have up to 50).

From a personal point of view, I feel that the animation in the Miyazaki films can be beautiful.  This is truer for the later films but that can be said of most animation. Like the rise of the great forest spirit, Howls moving castle, Ponyo running on the waves.

The issue of quality can also come down to budget.  Disney films may have better looking animation but there budget is a lot higher, for example the budget of the Lion King was $45 million in 1994 (not taking into account inflation and I am willing to grant that Mr Elton John might account for some of this high price :P), the budget for Spirted Away was $19 million in 2001. Disney does look great but they also have the money to put that extra polish on.

Also side point, the guys at Pixar admit they love the Miyazaki films and have played tribute to them in their films c.f Toy Story 3.