#AGhibliADay #TheCastleOfCagliostro

Today, we watched The Castle of Cagliostro, a film neither of us had watched before. In fact, neither of us has ever seen an episode of Lupin the III, the anime series the film is spun off from.

Also, we are 100% cheating today. This is not a Studio Ghibli film. It wasn't even grandfathered in like Nausicaä was. But it was Hayao Miyazaki's first feature film, so we're gonna pretend 😃

This film was blasted on its initial release for changing so much of what was considered established Lupin mythos. Lupin was a ruthless criminal and a womanizer, but in this film he's almost a gallant knight, saving princesses instead of robbing them blind. Fujiko was an overly sexualized woman for Lupin to fawn over and objectify along with the audience, but in this film she's a capable and badass secret agent who has all the best toys (she spends most of the film in a very conservative dress). Jigen is friendly and Goemon is funny here, things they are not in the regular series.

The art style here screams 70s anime. I am no expert by any stretch of the imagination, but I've seen stills and clips of things like Gatchaman and Space Battleship Yamato, and they all share a similar style. But Miyazaki goes and Miyazakis it up. The setting is the fictional and fantasized European principality of Cagliotstro, a Miyazaki signature. He has included fictional and fantasized European settings in many of his films, including Castle in the Sky, Kiki's Delivery Service, and Howl's Moving Castle. He also put a special focus on character's movements, something apparently not previously done in Lupin the III, but quite obvious in other Miyazaki films.

This is also the cartooniest film Miyazaki has ever done, probably due to inheriting the Lupin the III house style. Physics are completely ignored, characters are rubbery and invulnerable when required, and facial expressions can stretch as much as needed. Every other Miyazaki film's look is grounded in realism, even when depicting enormous insects, flying witches, or terrifying yokai.

And man, is this funny. I found myself laughing out loud at multiple points, not just at the cartoony elements (like Lupin swimming upstream or driving his car on the side of a cliff), but also at various quips and sight gags.

This is not a Studio Ghibli film. If it was, it wouldn't be the best, but it certainly wouldn't be the worst either. And without it, the genius of Hayao Miyazaki may have been forever hidden away from the world.

#AGhibliADay #GraveOfTheFireflies #MyNeighborTotoro

Today we watched the double header of Grave of the Fireflies and My Neighbor Totoro because that's literally the only way we can watch Grave of the Fireflies. We have watched both films before, and almost always together.

Grave of the Fireflies is bleak and unrelenting from the very beginning. There is no fantasy or whimsy here, though there is some magic, fleeting as it is. Seita does his very best to protect his much younger sister Setsuko from American bombs, from the truth of their parents' death, from their horrible aunt, and from hunger and malnutrition. He fails at all of them, not through any fault of his own, but simply by living through a really terrible time. Seita tries to shield Setsuko from the horrors of war as best as he can, and that's where the magic comes in. There are moments of true warmth and happiness, even as the bombs drop and the food runs out and the adults behave horribly.

In contrast, My Neighbor Totoro is almost entirely fantasy and whimsy. From the moment Satsuki and her younger sister Mei see the first group of soot-spreaders, there are smiles and laughter from both girls. The adults are all nice and cheerful, helping and feeding them. Totoro and the Catbus are adorable (in an occasionally horrifying way?) and very, very helpful. There is only one moment of possible danger, when we think Satsuki and Mei's mother might have gotten sicker, and then when Mei goes missing, but this is used mostly as a way to give us more whimsy and fantasy. Satsuki asks for and receives Totoro's help, who immediately bounds through his giant camphor tree to call on the Catbus, who immediately takes Satsuki to Mei, and then both of them to see their mother, who is perfectly fine after all.

I studied literature at university, and one of my professors once told our class the difference between a comedy and a tragedy was simple: a comedy ended in a wedding, and a tragedy ended in a death. He was talking about Shakespeare (and he may have been quoting or paraphrasing someone else; I have forgotten almost everything I learned at university), but I think the sentiment applies here as well. If Seita and Setsuko had been just a little bit luckier, or had found even one nice adult, or hadn't lost both or either of their parents, Grave of the Fireflies could have had a happy ending. Likewise, if Satsuki and Mei had been unlucky, or had found evil spirits, or their mother had had something terminal, My Neighbor Totoro could have had a sad ending. Why does one set of siblings get a safe and happy family while the other gets death? Comedy and tragedy.

Grave of the Fireflies always leaves me wrecked at the end. It doesn't matter that I know how it ends (the film tells us in its opening scene how it's going to end), I always sob uncontrollably for a few minutes. And then I put on My Neighbor Totoro, and I start to feel better from the moment the opening credits start. I didn't know this before today, but Studio Ghibli did release these two films together in Japan in 1988, and were shown as a double feature in cinemas, proving that even they knew we would need a Totoro chaser after Grave of the Fireflies.

Coda: the US, however, decided to release Grave of the Fireflies in 1989, a full year before they released My Neighbor Totoro, because they're apparently a bunch of fucking sadists.

#AGhibliADay #WhenMarnieWasThere

Today, we watched When Marnie Was There, the most recent Ghibli film to date. It was released in 2014, and got some quite surprisingly critical admiration. I say surprising because frankly, we weren't fans.

Anna is adopted and has asthma. Because of this, she feels very different from other kids. Her mother (who she still calls auntie until the very end of the film) sends her to relatives in the country to hopefully improve her asthma a bit. While there, Anna befriends a very obviously ghost girl named Marnie. Marnie only appears at night, she appears and disappears like magic, and sometimes, only appears in Anna's dreams. Yeah, ghost all the way.

This is technically not a bad movie, but my idea of what was happening crashed so hard against what actually happened, I had no choice but to be greatly annoyed.

What I thought was happening was a queer coming-of-age story. I thought Anna felt different not because she was adopted and had asthma (which are perfectly valid reasons for feeling different, don't get me wrong), but because she was gay. She didn't like hanging out with other people, she didn't have any friends at school, she seemed secretive and withdrawn from pretty much everyone around her (in one jarring scene, she calls a girl she just met a "fat pig" for looking at her lantern festival wish without permission, which yes, is quite jerky, but maybe not worthy of name calling), and she only really opens up when she meets Marnie. Anna and Marnie proceed to spend secretive nights together, sharing secrets, going on small adventures, missing each other when they're not together, and in two separate scenes, saying they love each other.

It turns out, however, Marnie isn't a potential love interest at all; she's Anna's dead grandmother! What a ridiculous twist!

I understand that my reading was way off the mark, and that it may be unique to me, and I knew going in that this was yet another Ghibli film based on a novel. What I didn't know was that novel was published in 1967, when a queer coming-of-age story was practically unheard of.

So yeah. Take my dislike of this film with a grain of salt. You may enjoy more than me simply because you didn't start out with a wildly different premise in your head.

#AGhibliADay #HowlsMovingCastle

As you may or may not have noticed, we skipped a day. There was a family emergency (everyone and everything is fine now, so don't worry) that took us out of the house for the whole evening, so we had no time to watch anything.

But today, we watched Howl's Moving Castle. We had both seen it before independently of each other, but only once when it first came out and neither one of us could remember anything until it actually happened, so it was like watching it for the first time.

I do remember being somewhat disappointed when I first watched it, like too many things were left unexplained. I also remember reading the book it's based on immediately after and liking that a whole lot more (though I don't remember any of it anymore either).

On this second viewing, I looked for a theme, something that could tie the various disparate threads of the movie together. The first thread is the antagonism between Howl and the Witch of the Waste, which Sophie inadvertently gets in the middle of, and gets turned into an old woman for her trouble. The second thread is Sophie's journey to become young again, and how that takes her to the titular castle. The third thread is the war between two unnamed nations, and the destruction that is wreaking everywhere they meet. The fourth and final thread is Howl's own journey, though I have to admit this is the thread that is most hurt by various cuts Miyazaki had to make to fit the novel into a two-hour animated feature.

While these four threads crisscross each other, they honestly seem to have little in common beyond Howl himself. The Witch of the Waste is ultimately taken care of by Howl's old teacher, Suliman (and that name could be an essay all by itself), at which point Howl and Sophie rescue the Witch and their antagonism is never mentioned again. The war ultimately ends because Suliman saw Howl and Sophie's happy ending thanks to Heen (the most ridiculous-looking dog in all of Studio Ghibli), and she decides now's a good time to stop it... which makes no sense? Howl's journey... yeah, I don't know. There's a black room that leads to his childhood (literally; Sophie uses the black room to go to the past at one point), and he made a bargain with the demon Calcifer, but none of it makes any real sense as presented. The most fleshed-out thread is Sophie's journey, which is basically a love story. That's not bad or anything, but you can easily see where it's going a mile away.

So, what was the unifying theme? I'd like to think it was forgiveness. It explains almost every ultimate action by pretty much every character in the film. The war between the two nations may have been engineered by Suliman so she could find Howl and punish him for leaving her, but when she saw how happy he was with Sophie, she forgave him and stopped the war. The Witch forgives Howl for whatever injustice he wrought on her (he likely spurned her at one point or another, as she really wanted his heart, both literally and symbolically) when she gives his heart to Sophie (both literally and symbolically) so Sophie can save him. Calcifer and Howl forgive each other and undo the pact they made so long ago. And Sophie basically forgives everyone: the Witch, Calcifer, Suliman and her war, her mother (who is a fleeting presence at best), and Howl.

I could be wrong. Maybe forgiveness has nothing to do with this movie. Maybe it's about being brave and confident, which is supported by how Sophie's transformation comes and goes depending on her actions. Maybe it's love, and how that transcends our sometimes monstrous actions. Maybe it's something else entirely. But I think forgiveness fits best, and ties an otherwise truncated and disparate story together, papering over its many plot holes.

So, I forgive this movie for not being all it could be, and I will love it on its own terms.

PS. Seriously though, read the book by Diana Wynne Jones. I remember it being much better 😃

#AGhibliADay #PomPoko

Today we watched Pom Poko, a film neither of us had seen before, and I want to start by asking one simple question: what the fuck was that?

Pom Poko tells the story of a group of tanuki (magical shape-shifting raccoon dogs, in case you didn't know) trying to save their patch of forest from encroaching human urban development. This is billed as a comedy on IMDb and on Netflix, and while there are some funny bits (mostly in how often the tanuki do magic with their testicles; we'll circle around back to this, I promise), I am here to tell you this is not at all a comedy. There is tanuki-on-human terrorism, resulting in the death of many construction workers (we even got a scene of a draped body being taken out on a stretcher), there is human-on-tanuki murder, resulting in large piles of dead tanuki. And the tanuki lose so many times, in so many different ways, that by the time we get to the end and of course human urban development has continued unchecked, you're left wondering just how the tanuki didn't die from mass depression, though a group of them do basically commit suicide by sailing off in a golden ship that is actually just a tanuki's shape-shifted balls. I mean, the tonal shifts in this film gave me more whiplash than your standard Korean drama, and there is a lot of tonal whiplash in a standard Korean drama.

The design decisions made for this film are utterly bizarre. The tanuki don't have just one design, nor do they have two. They have three separate designs that they flit back and forth between. First, there is the regular, realistic raccoon design. This style is used whenever humans are nearby (and when they mate, I guess?). Second, there is the cartoony design. This is the design used through most of the film. A lot of the tanuki have clothes while in this design, and this is also when they do most of their shape-shifting. Third, there is the very simplistic cartoony style, where most of the details go missing and the they look almost rubbery. This style seems to be used when the tanuki are partying for whatever reason. Who decided this was a good idea? I found myself mostly wondering if there was an in-universe explanation for this (like, are the tanuki shape-shifting into these other forms?), or was it simply a stylistic choice? Again, who decided this was a good idea?

In folklore, tanuki are tricksters, and often use their testicles as their chief mode of magic. In various traditional Japanese art, tanuki are represented with quite frankly enormous testicles (please, do an Internet search; I take no responsibility for the resulting ads). Pom Poko decided to run with that like there was no tomorrow, and tanuki testicles are front and center in nearly every scene. Obviously, only males have testicles, so one would think that this would be a very male film (I mean, it is, but never mind). To counteract this, the film makes a point to say that, because the tanuki took a year off from mating, the women could also learn how to shape-shift since there were no babies to take care of (which is a whole other thing that I don't want to get into right now, but we all know that's some bullshit). There is an early scene, when many of the young tanuki are learning how to shape-shift from one of the elders. He has them seated on a carpet in front of him. But then, like a perverted magician, he reveals that they're not seated on a carpet at all. It's his transformed nutsack! Look, I know this is a cultural thing, but goddamn were there a lot of tanuki testicles. There were tanuki testicles transformed into balloons, there were tanuki testicles transformed into parachutes, there were tanuki testicles transformed into giant boulders, and yes, one particular pair of tanuki testicles was transformed into a golden ship which a bunch of tanuki sailed into the west like they were the goddamn Elves of Rivendell.

And yet, this is still somehow not the worst Ghibli film. Takahata, what were you taking when you made this, my dude?

#AGhibliADay #SpiritedAway

Today we watched Spirited Away. We'd both watched it before, and this is the girl's second-favorite Ghibli film (after Whisper of the Heart). It's maybe my fourth or fifth (I will rank them all at the end of this because I like to rank things 😃 )

I had forgotten just how much truly horrifying imagery there was in the film. From the jump, you've got parents turning into pigs, a spider-man (not a Spider-Man), and more yokai than you can shake a stick at. But it doesn't end there, oh no. There's the three rolling green heads. There's Yubaba's familiar, which has Yubaba's face. There's Yubaba herself, who has grossly incorrect proportions and a giant face. There's the creepy old-man-faced dragon that comes out of a stink monster after Chihiro washes it properly. There's No Face basically at all times, but especially when he starts eating and has arms and legs (fuck you, No Face!). There's the giant baby, which is almost as horrifying as the giant baby from Akira.

I understand that most of these people/creatures are ultimately friendly or at least not awful (and the giant baby and Yubaba's familiar are both transformed into some pretty adorable creatures), but that doesn't make them any less terrifying the first time they pop up on screen. I hope parents aren't letting their kids watch this.

My favorite scene in this movie is after Haku takes Chihiro to see her parents in the pig farm for the first time. Chihiro squats down near a field of something (wheat? corn? rice?) and Haku offers her some rice balls, assuring her they're good for her. She finally breaks down and cries after a long day and night of running on only adrenaline, of trying to figure out this new world, of deciding whether or not to trust the people that are trying to help her.

Chihiro is able to traverse this world and its many dangers and pitfalls for two reasons, and two reasons only: because people are nice to her (including some of the horrifying creatures/people, like Kamaji, No Face, Baby, Zeniba, etc.), and because she is nice to people, even the ones that have maybe tried to hurt her before, or she's been told not to trust. If this movie has any message beyond yokai are both terrifying and cool, it is to be kind to each other. If we're kind to each other, we can do anything, even escape a seemingly inescapable situation (and if this film has a second message, it's to not judge anybody on appearance alone). I hope parents are letting their kids watch this.

#AGhibliADay #Ponyo

Today, we watched Ponyo. The first time we watched this movie was on one of our earlier dates, at Golden Village Cinema in VivoCity.

This is a sweet adorable movie about a magic goldfish named Ponyo who longs to be human after falling in love with Sosuke. The fact that they're both five-year-olds only makes it even more adorable.

Ponyo's dad, the undersea wizard Fujimoto, is kind of jerk, but ultimately nice enough to let Ponyo choose for herself, while her mother is a sea goddess with some pretty sweet hair and probably the nicest person ever.

But I don't even want to talk about that. What I want to talk about is how great Ponyo's character design is, in all three stages of transformation. First, her goldfish stage: she clearly has a human face and red hair, and looks nothing like a goldfish, but everyone who looks at her thinks goldfish, so we'll just go with it. Her eyes are enormous and she has a round little belly (even the credits song says so). Then her intermediate stage: for some reason, when she first grows legs and hands, they are chicken legs in both positions. They are initially a bit weird, but you get used to them and they become adorable. Her face smooshes down a little, but it's still very clearly a goldfish face. She reverts to this stage whenever she uses her magic, but no one ever seems to comment on it. Finally, her human stage: she becomes an adorable five -year-old girl. Her general features are similar to her goldfish stage: red hair, red body (that is now a dress instead of her skin), and slightly large eyes (though not as large as when she's in either goldfish or intermediate stage). And while her hands and feet look human as well, she has very dexterous feet, and can use them like hands (like a chimpanzee or a gorilla). Conclusion: Ponyo is adorable no matter the stage, and this might be Studio Ghibli's best character design of all time (which is also used for Ponyo's little sisters, who are smaller than Ponyo and also incredibly adorable).

While there are some tense moments dealing with flooding and weird fish made out of water, I think this movie is suitable for kids and for adults looking for a nice, feel-good movie with no real stakes beyond adorable children going on a magical adventure.

#AGhibliADay #TheTaleOfThePrincessKaguya

Today we watched The Tale of the Princess Kaguya, the last film by Isao Takahata before his passing in 2018. Neither of us had seen it before, and I wish I'd liked it more.

Based on the The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, a Japanese folk tale, the movie follows Kaguya, from the moment she is born from a bamboo shoot to the moment she returns to the moon. It's a rather faithful adaptation, but there are a few changes/additions, like the inclusions of the village love interest Sutemaru and the noble teacher Lady Sagami, and the Emperor being kind of a dick. Takahata uses a similar visual style to what he used in My Neighbors the Yamadas, making it stand out from other Ghibli films. The film is also the longest of any Ghibli film, and is the most expensive animated film ever produced in Japan.

I don't know what lessons to draw from this film. Kaguya knows what she wants out of life, to play and work in the countryside, but subsumes those desires in deference to what her adoptive father wants, a large mansion in the city and many noble suitors. As such, Kaguya lives a miserable existence until her moon family comes to take her to her real home, and makes her forget everything she experienced on Earth. She doesn't want to go, because even though her existence was miserable, she loves her adoptive parents, and she certainly doesn't want to forget her experiences, but she has no choice. She forgets, and she goes back to the moon, and the film ends.

There are interesting bits in the middle, right after Kaguya and her parents come to the city. She is supposed to be learning how to be a proper princess from the put-upon Lady Sagami, and the usual country-person-trying-to-be-a-noble-person shenanigans occur. There is also the character of Menowarawa, one of Kaguya's ladies-in-waiting, who has the best design of the whole film. She is tiny and plump, and has the most amazing facial expressions.

Yeah, I don't know. This is not a bad film by any stretch of the imagination, but I was expecting it to be so much better than it was. If you're interested in the story, but aren't interested in watching this 137-minute film, then read the original folk tale instead. It's a decent story, just like the film based on it, but it won't take you as long to finish.

#AGhibliADay #OnlyYesterday

Today we watched Only Yesterday, Isao Takahata's second film after the gut-wrenching Grave of the Fireflies, and it was... okay. Neither of us had watched it before.

Taeko is a 27-year-old woman who has lived her entire life in Tokyo, but has longed for the country since she was 10, when all her friends visited their relatives during school holidays. This is her second year visiting her sister's husband's family so that she can farm for two weeks at a time (taking leave from work).

The film follows her at 27, working the fields, getting to know Toshio, the man who picked her up at the train station, and remembering different vignettes of when she was 10. These memories don't really connect to each other (one was of a boy who had a crush on her, another was of the first and only time her father slapped her, a third was about when she wasn't allowed to act in a college play, etc.), and they don't really connect to what's happening to her at 27. Taeko herself doesn't know why she's remembering these things now, which makes for a somewhat disjointed viewing experience. It was almost as if 10-year-old Taeko and 27-year-old Taeko were two completely unconnected people.

Also, what was up with some of the animation in this movie? 27-year-old Taeko looks like an old woman, and every time they panned to the various people working in the various farms, they all had these plastic-y, frozen smiles on their faces like they were all about to go on a murder spree. The animation was pretty good for the most part, but those two things were really odd decisions, especially when we saw Taeko and the farmers during most of the film.

I didn't hate Only Yesterday, but I didn't really like it, either. This is just sort of there, existing. I didn't get the same feeling of nostalgia or trying to find your place in the world that I did with Whisper of the Heart or even Ocean Waves (misplaced as that nostalgia was). Some of Taeko's memories were interesting, or funny, or shocking, but never enough to hold anything together.

#AGhibliADay #FromUpOnPoppyHill

Today we watched From Up on Poppy Hill, Gorô Miyazaki's second film. There will be spoilers in this write-up.

There are two main threads in this film (and similar themes to Whisper of the Heart): 1) trying to save the school clubhouse; and 2) the burgeoning romance between main character Umi and Shun. I will be focusing on the second point because, well, I was a bit weirded out.

Umi helps her grandmother run a boarding house in 1960s Japan. Every morning, she pulls up signal flags in honor of her father, who died during the Korean War. At school, she's helping her friends fix up the Latin Quarter, the old rundown building that houses all of the school's clubs, to stave off its tearing down. One of those friends is Shun, who she meets when he jumps into a pool of water in protest of the Latin Quarter's imminent demolition.

There is an immediate attraction, but we soon find out that Shun was adopted. It's something he's known his entire life, but he's only just realized that his biological father is also Umi's biological father. They agree to remain friends, but after a trip to Tokyo to meet a school alderman that can help them save the Latin Quarter, Umi confesses she loves Shun, and even if he is her brother, her feelings won't change. Shun says he feels the same.

This is about the time I started feeling weird. This is not a common plot device in western fiction (I guess soaps maybe play with this sometimes?), but the girl assures me this trope is quite common in eastern Asian fiction. This isn't the first time I've encountered it, but it's the first time I've encountered it with protagonists so young, which thankfully lessened the weirdness as their romantic relationship is very chaste. They only ever get as far as holding hands for a bit.

At the end of the film it's revealed (spoiler alert!) they are not related. I said "Oh thank God" out loud, I was so relieved. These kids were adorable together and I really, really wanted them to not be related.

This is a good movie, with great characters and a sweet story (with a bit of weirdness that can be overlooked since it is ultimately resolved), and far, far better than Tales from Earthsea.

#AGhibliADay #WhisperOfTheHeart

Today we watched Whisper of the Heart, and no fooling, it is now our favorite Ghibli movie.

This movie is about a lot of things. It's about first loves, it's about the act of creation, it's about lost loves, it's about working hard at something you might ultimately not be good at, it's about a fat cat, it's about discovery, and it's about that time in your life when everything is the most important thing ever.

But mostly, it's about growing older.

The film opens with Olivia Newton-John's version of "Take Me Home, Country Road" playing over the traditional Ghibli establishing shots, and I'm not ashamed to admit I was very confused. What an odd song to play at the beginning of a Japanese animated film aimed primarily at Japanese young adults. We quickly find out that Shizuku, our protagonist, is trying to translate/rewrite the lyrics for her friends. At the beginning of the film, she has two versions: a serious version, that is still in a rough stage, and funny version, which she makes about Tokyo and changes "country roads" to "concrete roads".

This song is used throughout the entire film in different ways, and Shizuku's final Japanese version is sung over the end credits by Yoko Honna, the voice actress for Shizuku. But my favorite use of the song is also my favorite scene in the movie, and probably my favorite scene in all of Studio Ghibli's films.

When Shizuku visits the strange little shop where the Baron is housed, where she was led by Muta a few days earlier (you remember Muta and the Baron, right? we'll get back to them in a second), she comes downstairs to find Seiji carving a violin. Seiji is her frenemy at this point, and only becomes her first love a little later. She marvels at his skill, while he plays it down, saying there are way better violin makers out there. She asks him to play a song, but he'll only do it if she sings. Because he found her "Take Me Home, Country Road" lyrics earlier in the film, he plays that song on his violin, and she begins to sing. Halfway through the song, Seiji's grandfather and his two friends return to the shop and join in by grabbing a bunch of other instruments. I don't really know why, but I was in tears the second the three older men joined in. I didn't have any real affinity for the song before; I liked it well enough, but it held no special meaning for me (its use in promotional material for Fallout '76 didn't help matters any). Now, though, I may cry every time I hear it, and I may never really know why. Maybe it's because I'm older, and because I know for a fact that there are places I'll never be able to return to. Physically, sure, but it can never be the same.

Shizuku is a voracious reader. She checks out books from her school library, and from the public library, where her father works. By the end of the film, she is also a writer, writing a novel about the Baron. It's nearly impossible not to see myself in Shizuku, and remember what being that age was like, and how incredibly far away that all seems now.

Knowing that Shizuku has decided to write, and that she writes stories about the Baron, I see The Cat Returns in a new light. It's no longer just a fun and entertaining Alice in Wonderland pastiche. This is a story Shizuku wrote, maybe while she was still in junior high, or maybe after she went to high school.

Or maybe she wrote the story after she'd grown up and worked for 10 or 20 years, and was trying to recapture some of the magic from her youth, before she'd fully grown up.

#AGhibliADay #NausicaäOfTheValleyOfTheWind

As promised, we watched Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind today, and it is still my favorite Studio Ghibli film, even though it's technically not a Studio Ghibli film (it was released in 1984, a year before Ghibli's official founding; however, it has since been grandfathered in and now carries the Ghibli branding).

Everything about this movie is fantastic: its setting, its characters, the animation, its main plot, and its central conceit.

Today, instead of giving a plot synopsis and a half-assed analysis like usual, I thought I would instead relate interesting factoids about the movie, like the one above about this technically not being a Ghibli film. We'll call that 1.

2. Hideaki Anno animated the Giant Warrior/God Soldier scene near the end of the film. He would go on to animate even more giant, rotting things that shot lasers out of their faces in Neon Genesis Evangelion.

3. The Nausicaan aliens in Star Trek: The Next Generation are named after the title character. Bonus: Captain Jean-Luc Picard had his heart stabbed by a Nausicaan; Sir Patrick Stewart, who played Picard, also voiced Yupa in the 90s English dub.

4. Because this was an original story and not adapted from any existing source, Miyazaki wrote a manga so he could get it produced.

5. The film has a World Wildlife Fund logo at the very beginning, praising it for Nausicaä's repeated attempts to save the giant insects from other humans.

6. There are over 56,000 traditional animation cels used in this movie.

7. Yupa entering the Valley of the Wind at the beginning of the film was inspired by JRR Tolkien's description of Gandalf entering Hobbiton at the beginning of The Fellowship of the Ring (Peter Jackson may have then copied this scene for his adaptation of the book, but that's pure speculation on my part).

8. There is an aviation group in Japan who has made a real-world version of Nausicaä's glider. Ghibli wanted to officially back them, but the group declined in case somebody got hurt; they didn't want anyone to hold Ghibli responsible. They have since made a successful test flight.

9. Only 263 colors were used in this film, which may explain why some viewers think Nausicaä isn't wearing any pants when in her blue outfit. The color of her pants just happen to be very close to the shade of her skin.

10. Miyazaki was so angry at the original English version of Nausicaä (called Warriors of the Wind), which had huge edits and re-writes, and cut about a half hour from the total run time, that when piece of shit rapist Harvey Weinstein asked to make similar edits to Princess Mononoke ten years later, Miyazaki stormed out of the meeting. Several days later, Ghibli head Toshio Suzuki sent a katana sword with the words "NO CUTS" engraved on its blade to piece of shit rapist Weinstein's office. The film was released uncut in the US. Miyazaki commented on the incident in an interview, smiling and saying, "I defeated him." This is my favorite Miyazaki story ever.

If you have, for some reason, never watched this movie, I urge you to do so as soon as possible. It is legitimately awesome.

#AGhibliADay #OceanWaves

Today, we watched Ocean Waves, a movie neither of us had seen before. It's a story about Taku, now in college, reminiscing about Rikako, a girl he crushed on during high school, as he goes back to his hometown for a reunion.

And man, we hated it.

Rikako is a mid-year transplant from Tokyo, and she quickly gains the attention of most of the boys, but especially Yutaka, Taku's friend. Yutaka is instantly smitten, but can't work up the courage to confess his feelings. Rikako, meanwhile, manages to be rude, annoying, and outright mean to almost everyone at her new school. She lies to Yutaka and Taku both to get some money from them, and then lies to her only friend, Yumi, in an attempt to go back to Tokyo to see her father, whom she blames her mother for divorcing. Taku ends up going with her instead of Yumi because Yumi really didn't want to lie to her parents. On the trip, Rikako treats Taku quite badly.

And he still somehow ends up falling for her because I guess boys are idiots.

We are supposed to feel sorry for Rikako. Her parents have divorced, and she's been forced to move out to the country after living in Tokyo her whole life. But it's very hard not to intensely dislike her because she has almost zero redeeming qualities. She's a liar, a manipulator, she lashes out at people who try to help her, she's mean and nasty, and she slaps Taku twice for absolutely no reason beyond the fact that she's angry at what he's saying (even though the second time he was trying to be nice).

I try very hard not to give up on movies. If I don't like something in the first 15 minutes or so, chances are pretty good I'm gonna not like it by the end, but even so, I give them a chance, I give them the benefit of the doubt. People spend a lot of time and effort to make art, and the least I can do is experience it in full, and then decide if I like it or not. While I did finish Ocean Waves, it also reminded me strongly of one of the few films I quit after the first 5 minutes: My Sassy Girl. Both of these stories are about mostly nice, and mostly stupid boys who fall for girls who are just absolutely awful to them. The boys do all these things for the girls, and the girls just walk all over them. Taku stands up for himself more than the protagonist of My Sassy Girl does (again, I quit after five minutes, but my friends continued watching it in my room and I've had reports 😛 ), but it's still an absolute chore to watch this ridiculous premise.

Towards the end of the film, Taku reminisces about various interactions he's had with Rikako in what's supposed to be a schmaltzy "oh look at all these great memories we have together" montage, but, I kid you not, all of these memories are of Rikako being a jerk and using Taku for various things. None of them are romantic or sappy in the least.

Maybe there was something lost in translation. Maybe, like Tales from Earthsea yesterday, something was lost in the adaptation (Ocean Waves was also adapted from a novel). But man, something was lost for damn sure.

We're watching Nausicaä tomorrow because we'll at least be certain we're getting a good movie this time 😛

#AGhibliADay #TalesFromEarthsea

Today we watched Tales from Earthsea, Gorô Miyazaki's first film and loose adaptation of Ursula K. Le Guin's third novel in the series of the same name.

This movie felt like it was all about the duality of the world. All the main characters contained opposing, yet complementary natures within them: Arren, the hero of the story, is a young prince fleeing his homeland after murdering the King his father; Sparrowhawk is the Archmage of the land, but also a simple farmer; Tenar is a simple farmer herself, but also a "witch" who can brew cures; and Therru isn't just a regular girl. And everybody has a name and a true name.

The film even begins with a direct quote from the first Earthsea book:

"Only in silence the word,
only in dark the light,
only in dying life:
bright the hawk's flight on the empty sky."

Sparrowhawk says Ea is out of balance. This is causing crops to fail, dragons to appear closer to human settlements and kill each other, and darkness to cover the land. Sparrowhawk is trying to discover what is causing the imbalance, and finds Lord Cob, the main antagonist, attempting to flee the duality of life and death by gaining eternal life. But in becoming immortal and banishing death, he would also banish life. We cannot really live if we cannot die the film tells us (also Sparrowhawk and Therru, in case the rest of the film was too subtle 😛 ).

Behind the scenes, Hayao Miyazaki was supposed to direct the film, but he was busy with Howl's Moving Castle (another adaptation of another fantasy novel). Instead, Studio Ghibli head Toshio Suzuki decided Hayao's son Gorô should direct, against Hayao's wishes. Gorô would use not just material from Le Guin's book, but also from his father's manga Shuna no Tabi. Production was reportedly tense with father and son not speaking throughout even though Le Guin was told Hayao would oversee Gorô's work (she had only agreed to let Ghibli adapt if Hayao were directing, and was also disappointed to learn Gorô was instead).

When the film came out however, Hayao was happy with it, while Le Guin was not.

Dualities are all around and cannot be escaped from.

I'm not sure I enjoyed this film as much as other Ghibli films I've seen, but I didn't hate it either. I feel like the younger Miyazaki just isn't as good as his father or Takahata.

#AGhibliADay #TheCatReturns

 Today we watched The Cat Returns, a shorter Ghibli film neither written nor directed by either Miyazaki or Takahata, a first for both of us. I guess I knew intellectually that there were other filmmakers at Ghibli Studios, but I was still surprised to see neither man attached to this film.

This is a fun adventure movie set mostly in a magical world. There are many shades of Alice in Wonderland here as Haru finds herself in the Cat Kingdom because she was a brave girl who saved a cat about to be run over. That cat turned out to be the Cat Prince Lune, and his father the Cat King wants to show his gratitude in a myriad of ways, whether Haru likes it or not.

I won't discuss the plot too much because, like I said, this is a short film and you should all watch it for yourselves. I didn't know this when I started watching, but apparently this film is a sequel of sorts (or maybe a spin-off is a better word) to an earlier Ghibli film called Whisper of the Heart (neither the girl nor I have seen that one either). The Cat Returns features at least two characters (maybe three) from that earlier film, but not in any way that requires a watching of Whisper of the Heart (though now having read a bit about its plot, this may be tomorrow's Ghibli).

But yeah, this is a good movie. It's fun, it's funny, and it's short. I think kids would enjoy it a lot. All of the characters in the film are either funny or brave or both. There are no real villains, and everything is well resolved by the end.

#AGhibliADay #PrincessMononoke

Today we watched Princess Mononoke, one of Hayao Miyazaki's best fables about man versus nature. I had never seen this before, but the girl had, many years ago.

Like Shigeru Miyamoto, another great Japanese creator, Miyazaki has long used nature as a main source for his seemingly inexhaustible creativity. You can point at almost any Miyazaki film and see how important nature is to the story he is trying to tell, from Nausicaä to My Neighbor Totoro, from Pom Poko (which he neither wrote nor directed, but was his idea) to Princess Mononoke, and beyond. Nature, and humanity's role in it or against it, is the central idea in most of his stories.

Princess Mononoke begins with humanity in opposition to nature. Lady Eboshi, probably the most interesting character in the whole film, is strip mining the forest, killing all the animals, gods, and spirits who get in her way. She doesn't care about any of them; she only cares about the iron under the ground. She's cutting down entire forests. But she also saves lepers and prostitutes, and gives them jobs and a home in her Iron Town. The population of Iron Town is fiercely loyal to her. She's saved them all from hard, mean lives, after all.

Near the end of the film (which I won't discuss in too much detail because of spoilers), Lady Eboshi does something truly heinous and directly causes some really bad stuff to happen. But at the very end of the film, we are supposed to believe she has learned her lesson, even as she suggests she is going to continue doing what she was doing "better than ever".

It's difficult to truly hate Lady Eboshi, and it's even harder to say she's the villain of the piece. Yes, she's in direct opposition to the title character for pretty much the entire film, but she's not a wholly bad person. From her viewpoint, she's just making sure her people can survive, and even thrive. Why should these enigmatic gods and spirits get in the way of giving her people better lives?

Ultimately, the correct answer is that everything is better when man and nature coexist and work together, as is always the case in a Miyazaki film (and most likely real life too).

Video Game Round-Up! - April/May 2020

Welcome to another Video Game Round-Up! I did not play a lot this past month for three main reasons: 1) We had to finish writing the first draft of the next Sherlock Sam; 2) I have been watching a lot of classic movies in my free time instead of playing video games because a friend has been challenging us all to share our annual top 10 films lists, and I realized I have watched a woefully small amount of pre-1980 films; 3) The girl continues to bogart the Switch for Animal Crossing, so I can’t use it for anything else :P

The world is still extra dangerous right now thanks to the coronavirus, and I haven’t left the house since my last Video Game Round-Up! I might be developing a bit of agoraphobia, but I have been exercising a lot more in the house, and cooking a lot more (simple things, but still, way more than I was before all this). I keep finding new and interesting things to do in the house to keep me busy and sane, and sometimes that means less video games and more movies, or writing, or writing about movies :)

But enough about that, let’s get to the games!

#AGhibliADay #MyNeighborsTheYamadas

Today, we watched My Neighbors the Yamadas (a first for both of us), which is like the black sheep of Studio Ghibli films (at least the ones from the 20th century; I'm not 100% sure about the ones from this century) because it was so different. The subject matter is different (it's based on a comic strip), the format is different (it's a bunch of short vignettes instead of one longer narrative), and the art style is markedly different. No other Ghibli film, even now, looks anything like this (with the possible exception of The Tale of Princess Kaguya). It's very, very cartoony, all the characters are chibi-ized, there are often no backgrounds, and it looks almost like it was drawn with crayons. In short, it looks nothing like a Ghibli film. That's not a bad thing (I actually like this art style quite a bit), just prepare yourselves if you're expecting like Totoro or Mononoke.

But boy howdy is it hilarious. It's true that some of the jokes don't land, and some of the vignettes are actually a bit sad, but by and large, these vignettes are quite funny. Some had me howling with laughter to the point of not being able to breathe. My favorite joke, for those of you who have seen this before, is the shopping list joke between Mr and Mrs Yamada. I had to pause the movie and rewind because I was laughing so hard.

This is a great movie to watch right now. I think we all need a good laugh or two 😃

#AGhibliADay #KikisDeliveryService

We've decided we're going to watch a Studio Ghibli movie a day since they're all on Netflix! Some of them we've seen before, some we haven't, some only one of us has seen, but it doesn't matter because you can't really go wrong with Studio Ghibli films!

Today we watched Kiki's Delivery Service. We'd both seen this before, but the first time I watched it, I didn't really care for it. It seemed simple, had very little plot, and didn't seem to say anything profound like Studio Ghibli had accustomed me to in the movies I'd previously watched. But as an adult (and with the help of Patrick H. Willems' excellent video essay), I realized Kiki's Delivery Service did have a profound statement to make, and that statement was about burnout and depression. About how doing the thing you loved could become difficult, even impossible. No matter how good you are at it, no matter how much you love doing it, the things you love can burn you out.

Kiki loves flying. It's the one witchy thing she's shown doing (besides talking to her cat). She can't always do it super well, but she doesn't let that stop her. She loves flying so much, she makes it a key component of her new business when she sets off on her own. But pretty soon, that city living wears her down, and she stops being able to fly. She's angry at her friends, at the people who have helped her out, and it isn't until she takes a sabbatical out in the country with Ursula, a painter she befriended earlier (and a well-timed emergency involving one of her friends) that she learns to fly again.

Ursula talks about her painting, and how she's always wanted to do it, but sometimes, she just can't, and she needs to take a break before she can do it again.

I think we all have that one thing (or maybe many things) in our lives that we love to do, that we can't imagine not doing for the rest of our lives, that we nevertheless have to occasionally take breaks from because it's just getting to be too much, or too hard, or not fun anymore. And we take our breaks, sometimes for a few hours, sometimes for a few months, sometimes for a few years, and then we remember how great it felt to do it before, and we start doing it again and we can't understand why we stopped doing it in the first place. Sometimes that feeling just magically comes back, sometimes it takes a lot of work, and sometimes, you fear it may never come back at all, no matter how hard you try. Yeah, that happens too. Fortunately, it didn't happen to Kiki, and it hasn't happened to me either.