Princess Mononoke

Shigesato Itoi, not exactly a household name in the States, is probably best known here as the genius creator of EarthBound/Mother, Nintendo's offbeat role-playing video game series. In Japan, however, he was already a famous writer and pop culture personality, whose celebrity factored integrally into the quirky games getting made in the first place. A formidably prolific essayist and interviewer, he has kept his website, “Hobo Nikkan Itoi Shinbun” (“Almost Daily Itoi News”), updated daily (yes, contrary to the site's name) for over a decade now. But he originally rose to stardom as THE go-to copywriter in Japan, his taglines typically achieving near-ubiquitous recognition during the country's bubble economy of the 1980s. For obvious reasons, this sort of catchy and minimalist phrase-writing tends to lose everything in translation, but I do rather like the audacious taglines for his Famicom game Mother: "No crying until the ending" and "Guaranteed masterpiece."

Naturally, Japan's most eminent copywriter has also crossed paths with Studio Ghibli, which has been responsible for Japan's biggest domestic film productions. Over the years, Itoi has contributed the taglines to most of the studio's Japanese releases, including 1997's Princess Mononoke. As a behind-the-scenes documentary highlights, Itoi, who had never before had trouble encapsulating the movies into single phrases to the satisfaction of Ghibli producer Toshio Suzuki, struggled mightily to verbalize the essence of director Hayao Miyazaki's magnum opus into catchy ad copy. Together with Suzuki and Miyazaki, Itoi considered some fifty different possibilities before finally settling on "生きろ" (ikiro), which may be translated as the one-word existential imperative "Live" (or "Be").

The story of Princess Mononoke's tagline is rather more attractive to me than the story of the film itself. I also totally get why Itoi had such a hard time with it. I think I've seen this movie a whole three times now, and every time I come away at almost a complete loss as to what I think or how I feel about it.

Miyazaki's films are often noted for their environmentalist themes, but, going through his body of work now one film at a time, I have come to find that this and Nausicaa are the only ones actually to feature his ecological concerns as core to the central conflicts. Indeed, Princess Mononoke is like a "grown-up" version of Nausicaa--not necessarily in the sense of being intended for a more mature audience, but rather in that its director's outlook clearly evolved considerably in those 13 years between.

Miyazaki is Japan's most prominent director of animated films, but he's also done a bit of work in manga. Nausicaa, the movie that built Studio Ghibli, was, of course, a manga before it was an anime, but something you might not know is that the movie only adapted roughly the first quarter of the manga. Between films, Miyazaki continued to revisit this story and project, working on the Nausicaa manga for over a decade, only concluding it in 1994. I've never read the manga, but the consensus among those who have seems to be that the story evolved toward a far more sophisticated worldview beyond what we got in the movie. That movie, among other things, depended upon an almost literal deus ex machina to resolve things in a happy manner. Miyazaki has so far been fairly adamantly opposed to the idea of adapting the rest of the manga into any animated sequels, but the first film he directed following his completion of the manga may be regarded as a kind of "do-over." Princess Mononoke, though taking the earlier film as its foundation, reflects those years he spent actively contemplating and reassessing Nausicaa to produce in every way a much harder work.

Set in a heavily mythologized version of feudal Japan, it depicts the struggle between the gun-toting humans of Iron Town and the talking giant animal gods of the forest, whose resources are rapidly being consumed by the humans. There are also some imperialistic samurai trying to lay siege to Iron Town, and the frustrated animal tribes don't exactly put up a united front either, their desperation and pettiness rising as their shared territory diminishes. It's pretty dense, probably overly ambitious for a feature film, even with a running time over two hours. These days, it's not uncommon for me to fall asleep to the TV after a long day has depleted me. But this is one of the few movies where I think I've fallen asleep during at least one viewing simply because just watching and trying to process it tired me out.

The opening sequence deliberately echoes Nausicaa's, with the protagonist trying frantically to halt the advance of a raging giant boar. But this beast will not be calmed, having been driven to a demonic madness from the iron ball lodged in its body. To protect his village, the hero has no choice but to slay the boar god. Thus, the shift from Nausicaa toward a more pessimistic take in Princess Mononoke becomes almost immediately apparent.

For one thing, this is by far the most violent film in the Studio Ghibli canon. I'm talking on-screen decapitations and limbs-a-flyin'. Fans introduced to Miyazaki through his other works may be shocked on first viewing Princess Mononoke. In fact, as translator Steve Alpert's online production diary (sadly no longer available, but partially archived here and here) recalled, when Disney executive Michael O. Johnson viewed the trailer for Princess Mononoke, he was struck speechless. The movie had still been early in development when Disney secured the rights to the Ghibli catalog, and now it was going to be the first US commercial theatrical release out of the agreement. Johnson had been a major supporter of Disney's deal with Ghibli, based on his having seen and liked Kiki and Totoro, and, now knowing that he would shortly have to pitch Princess Mononoke to other Disney execs, he asked Toshio Suzuki to please give him something less violent to work with:

"Do we have to have the arms and heads flying off? Isn't there something softer in the film? Romance maybe? Can't I get a nice romantic scene, you know, between the hero and heroine? Maybe a kiss or something?"

Despite the violence, Princess Mononoke is probably less unsettling than either Grave of the Fireflies or Pom Poko at their most graphic moments. The film suffers from an identity crisis as a result, because, although its violence makes it a hard sell as family-friendly viewing, it still feels rather cartoonish and kid-oriented. The humans tend to be drawn cute, personalities lack dimension, dialogue is juvenile, and, even when a character has his hands shot off with an arrow, the moment is played somewhat for laughs, as the poor bastard just looks around witlessly in delayed reaction, instead of collapsing in shock and agony.

The only compelling character for me is Lady Eboshi, leader of Iron Town, and very much an evolved version of Princess Kushana, who was similarly my favorite in Nausicaa. The closest thing the story has to a persistent incarnate antagonist, she is entirely remorseless in her deforestation campaign. To her own people, however, she is a hero for social equality, standing up to the emperor, rescuing girls out of brothels to instead be productive members of her ironworks, and even employing lepers to develop her firearms. All this good she accomplishes depends on her being able to harness the forest's resources. She's probably a bit too megalomaniacal to comfortably label a good guy, but she's certainly no worse than any of the bestial gods representing the other side.

The only real white hat is our hero Ashitaka, basically a male version of Nausicaa, his uncompromising and self-sacrificing idealism similarly obnoxious. But whereas Nausicaa the movie was far too much in love with its heroine, Princess Mononoke seems to acknowledge how naive Ashitaka's ideals are, and he takes a beating for them every step of the way. I suppose the fact that he holds fast to his convictions anyway is what makes characters like him and Nausicaa ultimately better than their critics.

Princess Mononoke is about as dense and bewildering visually as it is narratively. One can easily guess that the scale of this project far exceeded any previous Ghibli production. There are so many moving pieces that it almost feels at times overindulgent. The writhing masses of serpent-like tentacles that adorn the body of the beast in the opening sequence is an oft-cited highlight, but perhaps even more impressive is a later scene featuring a lush background of individually animated blades of grass. This was also the second Ghibli film to utilize computer-generated effects (Whisper of the Heart was the first, though in only one isolated scene), albeit with mixed results, including a pretty awful morph effect employed early on.

I previously said that Nausicaa was among my least favorite Miyazaki films, but, as I've gone back through them over these last couple months, what's interesting to me is that, out of all of them, Nausicaa is the one I find my mind drifting to most often. Specifically, it's that image of young Nausicaa with the baby Ohmu. There is such an indelible quality to that scene. Princess Mononoke is the only other Miyazaki movie I've come across thus far to so strike me with images possessed of a similar power, most of them involving the Shishigami or "Forest Spirit," an enigmatic god worshiped by the animals of the forest, who would presume a kinship with it, though truly they understand it no better than anyone else. Unlike those other so-called "gods"--really just giant talking animals--the Forest Spirit is a god of the unknowable and omnipotent variety. With the body of a stag, the feet of a bird, and the face of a baboon, never speaking and its expression never changing, it treads the water's surface and appears able to grant either life or death as it pleases, though none can ever comprehend why it does one or the other. For reasons I can't entirely explain, I find its appearance intensely unnerving, though also bestowed with a certain haunting majesty. I half-joked that Totoro seems the sort of creature one might encounter in a nightmare, but the Forest Spirit is what lies beneath, lurking several layers deeper into one's unconscious.

So, after three or so viewings, I'm still not sure what to take away from this film, other than that it's possibly Miyazaki's most visually masterful. I don't know where I'd personally rank it among his films overall, or whether I even like the story at all. Unlike Nausicaa, where it seemed a lot of problems could have been avoided if only the humans could have learned to live and let live, Princess Mononoke presents a conflict with no easy answers, as both sides simply need something that they can't both have. Reducing the dilemma down to Miyazaki's real ecological concerns, it seems the years between Nausicaa and Princess Mononoke revealed to him two truths: 1) Yeah, we humans kind of ruin the world, but we can't really help it if we want to live, and 2) Love nature though you may, the notion of a benign, harmony-seeking life force of the planet is complete rubbish. So what does that leave us? If your instinctive response is "nothing," then I assure you you're not alone.

It can be frustrating, especially if you come in looking for a black-and-white narrative from a movie that is in other ways rather cartoonish, to stick with a story for two hours and still not know which side it's arguing for. Done poorly, this eschewing of a Nausicaa-esque happy ending or, really, anything whatsoever resembling a resolution, can leave one with the impression that the director doesn't know what his own point is, or if he even has one. Even done well, fatalistic stories such as this tend not to be altogether satisfying experiences. But maybe that is the message ultimately of Princess Mononoke. Life is rough, ugly, even largely incomprehensible (yes, that last one especially). We soldier on, not to overcome or understand, but because we must. Like the tagline says, "Live."

Whisper of the Heart

Whisper of the Heart (1995) was Studio Ghibli's first theatrical feature directed by someone other than Hayao Miyazaki or Isao Takahata. Based on a manga by Aoi Hiragi, with a screenplay by Miyazaki, it was the directorial debut for Yoshifumi Kondo, who had previously worked as an animator and character designer on a number of Miyazaki and Takahata's projects. Tragically, this would be the only film Kondo would ever direct, as he died just a few years later of an aneurysm said to have been brought on by overwork. If the beginnings seen in Whisper of the Heart are any indication, then Studio Ghibli and the world lost a tremendous talent.

Set in then-present-day Tokyo—in fact, it's the same Tama Hills area, just a generation later, as depicted previously in Pom Poko—Whisper of the Heart follows Shizuku, a 14-year-old junior high student, as she prepares for the transition to high school and, perhaps, the rest of her life. The premise is more straightforward than previous Ghibli films, although this is also, in many ways, a story distinctly concerned with Japanese society. If you've been around anime for a while, then a lot of this movie's "peculiarities" that probably shouldn't jibe with your own junior high experience may not even register as anything out of the ordinary. If, on the other hand, you're one of those viewers wondering why the female students are all wearing sailor outfits, then perhaps some cultural notes are in order.

The key thing you really need to understand is that, in Japan, although most students continue from junior high into high school, it is not compulsory, and there is actually a lot of competition and complicated admissions procedures to get into higher-ranked schools. When anime and manga characters are stressed out over "exams," this is usually referring to high school entrance exams. The process is vaguely similar to getting into university for those of us in the US. Meanwhile, in Japan, what high school you end up in often predetermines what university you attend, or whether you proceed to higher education at all; students not on track for college typically go from junior high to vocational high schools that prepare them for jobs instead. Thus, the transition from junior high to high school is a pivotal moment in the Japanese student's education, as it may well dictate how they spend the rest of their life. Oh, and those sailor outfits? I don't know why either, but that's just the standard uniform in Japan for some reason.

In Whisper of the Heart, we catch Shizuku coming up on that pivotal moment, but, whereas more ambitious students are stressed out over whether they will make it into the high school of their choice, Shizuku doesn't seem to have a clue what she wants for her future. A voracious reader, she is, however, sufficiently distracted by her books that she is not initially too worried, not even to the extent that her situation probably warrants. Instead of studying for exams, she reads fiction, checking out book after book from the library. And, apparently, she's not the only one. Looking over the checkout cards in her books, she notices that every book has been checked out previously by some guy named Seiji Amasawa.

If you were born after this movie was made, you may not even know what the deal is with these "checkout cards," since most libraries just keep digital records nowadays. But this is obviously the setup for a romance, perhaps of the fairytale sort found in Shizuku's books, and, although it is not as contrived as it first sounds, Shizuku does end up meeting and falling for Seiji, a fellow student in the same year but a different class.

The heart of the film, which truly emerges after they begin their relationship, is Shizuku's struggle to define herself. In Seiji, Shizuku is confronted with someone who knows exactly what he wants out of life. His dream is an eccentric one—he wants to be a professional luthier (maker of stringed instruments)—but he's already invested a good deal more thought and effort into it than Shizuku has in any plans for herself. This is not a story about "finding" yourself in someone else, but, for Shizuku, meeting Seiji becomes a sort of catalyst for her to work seriously at figuring out what she's going to make of herself. Because she loves stories, her first thought is to become a writer, which she quickly learns is hard work, as difficult, in its own way, as any other trial a Ghibli protagonist has ever gone through. Like most budding young artists, she grapples with feelings of inadequacy, knowing that her work is her very soul and yet still she must assess it critically as unsatisfactory. Such are the setbacks and disappointments one faces on the road to becoming oneself. You wonder where you're headed, question whether or not you can really get there, perhaps change your mind several times along the way to where you finally end up, if it's anywhere at all. Maybe some people are born knowing exactly what they want to do with their lives, but I would consider them the lucky ones. That has not been my experience, and so I can totally identify with Shizuku's struggle, which is depicted almost crushingly true-to-life.

Whisper of the Heart is perhaps not altogether Ghibli's most profound work. It is still an anime about junior high students and not able to escape all the attendant cliches, such as a subplot that has Shizuku unwittingly drawn into a love quadrangle, which instead becomes a comedy of errors because these Japanese students must be so indirect in expressing their intentions. That one is a facepalm-inducing subplot that has precious little to do with the main story, but Whisper of the Heart is filled with many other minor digressions that flesh out the characters in subtle ways. Shizuku's family, for instance, is, first of all, not only present and active in her life, but her parents and sister actually come across as complete people unto themselves, as opposed to just plot devices. We learn from dialogue here and there that the mother is attending school as a grad student. Meanwhile, the older sister, in college and also working, is ready to move out of their cramped apartment, where she shares a room with Shizuku. Later on, we see that Shizuku has the room to herself. The movie does not dwell on these details, but they make conversations sound more convincingly real and provide a sense that there is more going on in this world than a single teenager dealing with her angst. One of my favorite such bits comes when Shizuku visits her best friend, who, as they head to her room, casually whispers, "I'm having a fight with my father. I'm not talking to him." This is never followed up on, and the father in question, perfectly affable, gives no indication that there is any such fight. It's just a silly inclusion, as believable as it is insignificant.

Among Ghibli films, Whisper of the Heart has most in common with Kiki's Delivery Service and Only Yesterday, both of them similarly more subdued stories of young females wrestling with questions of personal identity. If Kondo was not yet so accomplished as his predecessors in the Studio Ghibli director's chair, exhibiting not quite the flair of Miyazaki nor the depth of Takahata, nevertheless his Whisper of the Heart was possessed of an earnestness and sincerity that have made it a personal favorite of mine.

Pom Poko

Following the tragic Grave of the Fireflies (1988) and the poignant Only Yesterday (1991), director Isao Takahata gives us . . . a talking, singing animal picture? Indeed, on the surface, Pom Poko (1994) seems the most cartoonish entry in the entire Studio Ghibli library, and perhaps it is. But the story is also surprisingly dark and, at times, outright unsettling.

In mockumentary fashion, Pom Poko follows a community of raccoon dogs or "tanuki" (called simply "raccoons" in the Disney translation) fighting to preserve their habitat in the Tama Hills, which, in the 1960s, is rapidly succumbing to urban development and deforestation. Tanuki are characterized in Japanese folklore as mischievous creatures possessing mystical powers of illusion and shapeshifting. In Pom Poko, it is these powers that the tanuki primarily draw upon to wage their war against encroaching humanity. Mostly, this involves pranking the unwitting humans by staging ghost stories to scare them off the land, basically haunting the area in the manner of a Scooby-Doo villain. Although they make for rather mean tricks to play on the humans, many of the schemes the tanuki devise are hilarious to observe.

Even funnier is an alternative proposal of trying to blend into human society. Masters of transforming, the tanuki are even able to pose as humans, albeit with some strain. We see early on that some less gifted tanuki are comically unable to pull off the human form convincingly. Then, when a team infiltrates the city to research human society, the documentary narrator drily suggests that the dark circles you sometimes see under people's eyes actually indicate undercover tanuki on the verge of reverting due to the exhaustion of having to maintain human form.

For the first half, Pom Poko is by far the funniest movie Ghibli has ever done. Into the second hour, although the movie itself maintains the same playful tone, I no longer found the story a laughing matter. The tanuki succeed in scaring off individual humans, but these victories do little to slow the tide of civilization advancing into their home. The movie repeats a pattern, of the tanuki frightening a group of humans, then celebrating their accomplishment, only to see on the TV news that the land developers are undaunted. After a couple cycles of this, a sense of futility sets in. At that point, well before the closing credits, you realize that the tanuki are never going to be able to win the war, and then watching them continue to fight on hopelessly with the same old tactics becomes simply exhausting, even agonizing, which is maybe the point—I mean, imagine how the tanuki must feel, if even we the viewers are starting to feel worn down. But it also becomes repetitive and tiresome to watch, and I don't really buy that that was Takahata's intention. It starts to seem gratuitous after a while.

The most elaborate sequence in the entire movie involves the tanuki focusing all their collective power to stage a grand parade of spirits through the city streets. The desperate tanuki bet just about everything on this massive operation, but there's not even any message (e.g. "get off our land") accompanying it to the humans. Given that it is a parade, it comes across more fun than scary or threatening, and that's how the humans in the movie end up taking it as well. Do a little research, and you'll find that the spirits featured in this sequence (and elsewhere throughout the movie) are all nods to Japanese folklore and literature. Having this information maybe adds an extra dimension to one's viewing experience, when you realize that, in addition to the environmental message bemoaning the thoughtless advance of urbanization, Takahata is celebrating Japan's folkloric traditions while also lamenting their shrinking place in modern Japanese culture. But obviously none of that resonates with me, and so this just comes across as a very long and self-indulgent sequence that doesn't serve the main "raccoon dog war" narrative in any effective way.

The movie could have used some editing, but, when it works, it is as emotionally affecting as Takahata's previous films. In fact, I honestly think this tops Grave of the Fireflies as Ghibli's most feel-bad movie. Although their powers make them ideal tricksters, tanuki are traditionally held to be jolly by nature, also lazy and absentminded. Pom Poko emphasizes all these traits of theirs to show why they could never effectively wage a war. That only makes it feel all the more wrong as the tanuki fail and die, all the while never losing their playful demeanor. In one especially unsettling scene, a group of tanuki, freshly run over, are depicted in extra-cartoony form—a style used elsewhere in the film usually when the characters are having a silly good time—as they address the camera for their final words: "Well, I guess we're no match for the humans." In the next shot, we're shown the road littered with very realistically drawn dead tanuki bodies.

Pom Poko is not subtle, and it's overlong by about twenty minutes in the middle. Even so, no other Ghibli movie ever made me laugh so hard or feel so terrible. And certainly no other ever did both to me in the same movie.

Porco Rosso

Porco Rosso (1992) is easily Hayao Miyazaki's most adult film, as well as his most clearly personal. Miyazaki injects a lot of his concerns and passions into each of his films—his environmentalism, his feminism, his love of aviation—but, whereas many of his other movies seem to be about imparting to his young viewers some of his values and experience, Porco Rosso plays out more like a story he wrote to himself.

Set after World War I, Porco Rosso revolves around an Italian former flying ace, who at some point became cursed with a literal pig's face, thus earning him the nickname "Porco." The movie is unexpectedly deadpan regarding this affliction. Given that this is a Miyazaki picture, one perhaps expects some fanciful adventure to ensue, wherein the characters journey to colorful locales and endure whimsical trials in a quest to break this gypsy or whatever curse and restore him to his human form. But no, instead, when people see Porco for the first time, they at most act mildly intrigued, and then everybody moves on. And it's not as if this is some fantasy world filled with animal people; Porco's pig form is the only supernatural element in the entire story, which is otherwise more precisely set in a real place and time than any other Miyazaki movie. Porco himself does not seem too overly concerned about the curse. It hasn't affected his diet, his lifestyle, or his piloting skills. He's basically just a human being who happens to have the face of a pig, and, like it or not, the movie doesn't bother to explore the how of it.

Pig or no, Porco remains a legendary aviator, and, in between-wars Italy, he makes his living as a bounty hunter, becoming the bane of the air pirates of the Adriatic. They enlist the services of an American ace and self-styled Casanova named Curtis (ironically voiced in the Disney dub by Cary Elwes) to take Porco down. Potentially complicating this rivalry (but mostly just adding some humor at the American's expense), Curtis also has his eyes on the nightclub owner, Gina, who is obviously in love with her dear friend Porco, despite that he seems mostly dead to romance.

It's clear early on that the showdown between Porco and Curtis will form the climax of the story. Building up to that, the film's middle act is surprisingly sedate and unhurried. It's the most laid-back movie Miyazaki has ever done, without an abundance of action or events or the sorts of otherworldly sights that the director is typically known for. It is more concerned with having viewers spend time getting familiar with the characters and setting.

As Porco prepares for his duel, ordering repairs and adjustments on his plane, he is disconcerted to find the local workforce made up entirely of women, the economic depression having earlier forced all the men to relocate in search of work. Also placing the story's setting is a subplot that has Porco having to evade the Italian secret police because he is not on board with the new Fascist regime. And probably my favorite scene occurs when Porco and an old war buddy still in the service meet inside a movie theater. As they talk, the projector plays a slapstick black-and-white cartoon seemingly inspired by Betty Boop and early Mickey Mouse. Porco and his friend's respective assessments of the cartoon are classic, and I'm guessing Miyazaki himself would probably agree with both of them.

Porco Rosso does have its share of breathtaking moments as well. In today's context, where news about "the war" conjures images of drones pounding the Middle East, the kind of aerial combat featured in Porco Rosso is already almost unimaginable. When Porco recounts a particularly grim episode from his dogfighting during the war, the flashback is presented with a muted delicacy that further imbues the scene with an eerie surrealism, as each side's fighters first form up with precision and grace, then meet in a balletic dance that seems almost choreographed. When the first plane bursts into flames and goes down, one comprehends it as in a dream. Intellectually, you understand what has happened. And yet the scene, of these machines circling far above mankind's natural dwelling place, and as unresistingly fragile as they are unrepentantly destructive, remains just slightly isolated from sensory reality. To try to resolve this dissonance is to confront some innate madness of war, or maybe even just mortality.

And perhaps that is where the film offers some clue as to why Porco became a pig. Living alone in a tent on an island, a burned-out and world-weary Bogart-esque cynic—in fact, the entire movie is designed to be as close as you'll find to a cartoon Casablanca—the mercenary Porco is unlike any other Miyazaki protagonist yet, in a way, perhaps more thoroughly Miyazaki than all the others. The implication is that, during the war, Porco experienced something horrible that changed the way he saw the world, and that change has manifested physically in his taking on a pig form, thereby changing, in turn, the way the world sees him.

Miyazaki never was a soldier, but there is little doubt that Porco is a self-portrait of the director himself. In interviews with the man, what's consistently apparent is his negativity toward this age we live in. He's down on the state of the Japanese animation industry, down on how Japan is raising its youth, down on society in general, kinda just down on everything. It's an odd attitude for a director best known for films that seemingly cater to a romantic worldview. The man and his work appear in conflict. I wonder if this tension troubles him. Porco Rosso suggests that it does.

Nearly all his protagonists are youngsters, still spirited and optimistic. Perhaps they too are self-portraits of a sort—reflections of his own worldview at that age. But Porco is the only one who is truly middle-aged, as Miyazaki himself was when he wrote this story. What we see in Porco is a realist with not a lot of faith in humanity. Yet we also get the sense that he was not always this way. No, obviously he did not begin life already disillusioned; that's something that can only come with age and experience. Whether it must come with age and experience is debatable, but that it happened to Miyazaki is certain, and perhaps a part of him sees that as regrettable. No doubt, it's not easy to live with what you've become, when you can still remember how much nicer the world used to look. And thus, while Porco himself shows no desire to return to human form, nevertheless the film's heroines, Gina and the spunky young mechanic Fio, root for his curse to be broken—essentially, for him to regain his hopefulness and vigor for life. Whether Miyazaki roots for that is hard to determine. I don't think the movie intends for Porco's happy ending to be conditional upon his regaining his human form, but maybe that's just my own interpretation through a lens of contented disillusionment. But Fio especially—clearly in the lineage of Nausicaa—seems inserted into the movie specifically to argue on behalf of the part of Miyazaki that does still hope. Yes, it's as though a struggle between two aspects of Miyazaki is playing out within a movie to serve as a message from the director to himself. Fascinating.

Following the more youth-oriented Kiki's Delivery Service, Porco Rosso comes across as Miyazaki pausing in a moment of self-reflection to consider his own stage of life. It's not too serious a survey—he did give himself a pig's head, after all—but thoughtful and honest, self-indulgent yet humble. And, after watching it, I feel like I know and appreciate the man behind the movies better.

Only Yesterday

To date, Isao Takahata's Only Yesterday (1991) is the only theatrical Studio Ghibli feature yet to receive (or be scheduled for) an English-language dub or US release. During a Q&A back in 2005, Disney's Rick Dempsey, who directed a number of the English dubs of Ghibli films, explained that the adaptation had been shelved indefinitely because the original movie was more for adults, and if and when it did get a US release, it might be subtitled-only. This surprised me, considering that Disney found a way to bring over Pom Poko (1994), despite it featuring tanuki testicles on display for pretty much the entire movie. I didn't think any Ghibli movie could pose more of a marketing challenge for Disney than that one (well, except for Grave of the Fireflies, which Disney never had the rights to anyway). But maybe it's because of the lengthy episode centered on menstruation, or maybe it's that the father comes off abusive in one scene. Or maybe Only Yesterday just wouldn't be that compelling to Disney's target demographic of children. Whatever the case, it's a shame that this film remains unavailable in the US. I was able to view it when Turner Classic Movies aired a subtitled version in 2006, despite it not having an official US release. What I found was an unforgettable movie unlike any other Ghibli had ever done, unlike anything else I had ever seen in animation.

Based on a manga by Hotaru Okamoto and Yuko Tone, Only Yesterday tells the story of Taeko, a single woman working in Tokyo, who, while vacationing in the countryside, finds herself flashing back to memories from when she was in the fifth grade. The original manga was a compilation of episodes about only the child Taeko, but the movie shifts back and forth between the adult Taeko in 1982 and the flashbacks set in 1966.

In either setting, moments are drawn and discussed with a delicate realism seldom seen in animation. Takahata devotes time and startling attention to detail to such simple scenes as characters eating pineapple or picking safflower. If you were one to count cels, then you might regard his allotting so many to realizing such mundane moments to be a wasteful expenditure of labor and run time. And yet, where seeing the Catbus in Miyazaki's My Neighbor Totoro may have made me think, “I've never seen anything like this before,” these meditative sequences in Only Yesterday, though much the opposite of the Catbus, nevertheless evoked in me a similar reaction of “I didn't know you could do that in animation.” Indeed, these quiet, reflective scenes, for all their simplicity, have a mood and a power to them that you'll find almost nowhere else in the medium.

The flashbacks contain occasional whimsical flourishes, as when a blushing Taeko's emotional state, following her first awkward romantic experience, is illustrated by her rushing off in the direction of the drawn background, but then, without missing a step, seemingly running along the surface of the animation cel itself, her feet lifting off the painted road, before she then proceeds to swim through the clouds toward sleep and dream. These touches charmingly depict the way a child's imagination can warp reality, as well as how the memories of childhood can be further tinted by nostalgia looking back.

The memories themselves are slices of life, not dramatic turning points. The flashbacks come to Taeko as she approaches a crossroads in her as yet unfulfilled adult life, but we are not meant to understand that her tenth year was her most pivotal, when this or that wrong turn or fateful decision determined the trajectory of the rest of her life. My favorite part of the movie comes when child Taeko is overjoyed to be offered an acting gig, only to have her own father forbid her going into showbiz. Cutting back to the present, Taeko's friends, having heard her tell the story, remark on the cruelty of her father to stand in the way of her dreams. But then Taeko reminds them and us that a whole seventeen years passed between then and now, and, in high school, she did try acting, only to find that it wasn't for her. But if it ultimately didn't shape the outcome of her life, then why was this memory featured for our consideration above, say, one from her high school attempt at acting?

Perhaps a memory doesn't have to be especially consequential in order to be personally meaningful. And, to be sure, Takahata's approach is, above all else, deeply personal. Some lengthy asides about organic farming notwithstanding, Takahata's movie is brimming with humanity. Now close in age to the adult Taeko, I find myself easily able to identify with the character at both stages depicted. I don't mean the details, but the awkwardness, the loneliness, the restlessness that she reveals upon self-reflection—it all rings so true, as do memories that poignantly blend nostalgia and embarrassment.

Reflecting on my own ten-year-old self, what I remember are footraces and essay contests, ice cream socials and Drug Abuse Resistance Education, and the time I should have gotten at least a triple in softball but was instead called out for throwing the bat. Looking at my life now, does any of that stuff still matter? These experiences have never helped me land a job or a wife or, really, anything else beyond the moments themselves. To that extent, they certainly haven't defined who I am. And yet, looking at it another way, those memories are no less my story than any others in my life. I look back and think that maybe those moments did reveal who I was and am, not by defining me, but by how I defined them. At least, for whatever reason, they have stuck with me. I can recall them clearly and still feel now as I did in the moments, as if it were all only yesterday.

Kiki's Delivery Service

Kiki's Delivery Service (1989) was the first Studio Ghibli movie that Disney localized for American audiences. The English version, arriving on VHS in 1998, was a surprise hit, selling over a million copies, and it also played regularly on the Disney Channel. Accordingly, it was also the first Ghibli and Miyazaki movie that I ever watched. At the time, I didn't really like it. It seemed to be a movie about not much in particular, where not a lot happened of any consequence. Watching it again, I now think it's probably my favorite of the Miyazaki films I've covered thus far.

In a departure from his previous Ghibli productions, Kiki's Delivery Service was not an original story by Hayao Miyazaki, but rather based on a popular 1985 children's novel by Eiko Kadono. Miyazaki also did not originally plan to direct it himself, as he was still busy with My Neighbor Totoro (1988) when production began. Dissatisfied with the staff's progress, however, Miyazaki finally ended up writing and directing Kiki himself, and the result was a film that bore many of his hallmarks yet still felt distinct from his previous works. Up to this point, Miyazaki had done a post-apocalyptic epic, a romantic boys' adventure, and a children's storybook movie. Kiki's Delivery Service, meanwhile, was a coming-of-age tale, with slice-of-life elements.

The story is about Kiki, a 13-year-old witch, who, at the beginning of the film, moves to the big city to live on her own for a year, as part of a customary rite of passage for young witches. By witch standards, she's not very talented, but, after a rough start, she decides to take advantage of her flying skills to operate a delivery service out of a friendly couple's bakery.

The movie's second act then consists of episodes of her settling in, running around town and meeting new people on the job. These were the parts that I originally found dull, probably because there never seemed anything much at stake. Also, most of the people Kiki met just seemed too nice to believe. Shouldn't there have been at least one cynical character always doubting her ability to make it on her own, advising her to give up and run on back home, maybe even working actively toward seeing her fail? There really isn't any antagonist whatsoever in Kiki's Delivery Service.

In the movie, the episodes are tied together within an overarching narrative with adolescent themes of Kiki trying to find her place and herself, but it's easy to imagine each delivery as a short story with its own tidy resolution. They're kind of cute, kind of sweet, and kind of funny. After a long week of work and not much else, I actually found these chapters, slight as they are, quite refreshing. Similarly, I didn't mind the lack of any serious conflict. My favorite scene in the whole movie is when Kiki, coming back from an errand, finds a lovingly designed wreath of bread unexpectedly at the front of the bakery advertising her delivery service. With no dialogue audible, she rushes in to embrace the taciturn baker who crafted it. It's a small scene and maybe a small, inconsequential moment in the grand scheme of the movie. Or maybe it's small moments like these that make one's day and, ultimately, one's life.

No, there isn't a whole lot at stake through most of Kiki's Delivery Service, but I guess, to me, that actually lends the story credibility, despite that it stars a witch and takes place in an imaginary idealized European seaside town—by the way, one of the most gorgeously realized fictional settings in any film. It's real enough to believe but still fake enough to enjoy. I apologize if that came across cynical, but I only mean that watching Kiki is like getting a glimpse at what real life ought to be, maybe what it can be, indeed what it has been at its best.

It probably helps things that Kiki herself is much easier to relate to as a character than previous Miyazaki protagonists. More fallibly human than Nausicaa, she's clumsy, she can be shallow and superficial, she gets frustrated and even bored. Indeed, that last is maybe the most charmingly realistic aspect of Kiki's Delivery Service—the way it gets life's doldrums. As Kiki starts to settle into life's routine is when she starts to wonder what it's all about and whether there's more.

Kiki's Delivery Service is not all a laid-back series of vignettes. When Kiki is invited to ride on the backseat of a human-powered aircraft—basically a bicycle with propeller—the result is one of the more exciting sequences in Ghibli history. And the climactic scene involving a rescue from a crashed dirigible ranks up there with any superhero movie action sequence.

Kiki's Delivery Service is more involved than My Neighbor Totoro, but no less heartwarming. It's not only sweet but also a thoughtful movie for adolescents. As Kiki learns, independence is not just about fending for yourself, but about finding an identity apart from where you came from and what you've been given. And, although it may feel smaller than Nausicaa or Laputa, in that way it teaches us to reflect on the nice little moments in our small lives, which, at the end of the day, is all that most of us have.

My Neighbor Totoro

It's unbelievable to me that someone actually thought it would be a good idea to release the joyous My Neighbor Totoro (1988) as a double bill with the harrowing Grave of the Fireflies. My Neighbor Totoro has since become one of Ghibli's most beloved and profitable movies, but the experiment was originally a failure at the box office. I wonder in what order most theaters screened the two films. I thought perhaps it would be better to have My Neighbor Totoro play second, to let audiences leave on a more uplifted note. But I suppose it's a bad combination either way.

And yet the films are not entirely dissimilar. They both feature two children as the main characters. In both cases, the parents largely absent, it is the older sibling who primarily looks after the much younger, although the job is more than they can be expected to handle on their own.

In the case of My Neighbor Totoro, the kids' mother is in the hospital for some unnamed condition. Based autobiographically on Miyazaki's own mother, who was sickly with tuberculosis, it's just a reality of this family's life, never played up for manipulative tragedy, but the uncertainty of her recovery provides an undercurrent of tension throughout this otherwise most gentle and unaffected of Miyazaki movies. I must admit, however, watching this after Grave of the Fireflies, and thinking back on what horrible thing happens to the mother in that one, I could not help feeling somewhat jaded at the sick mother subplot in Totoro. Nevertheless, while Grave of the Fireflies is surely the more powerfully moving film, Totoro is more personally resonant, and occasionally powerful in its own way.

When I was growing up, my parents worked every day into the night. As long as I didn't have to get up early the next morning for school, I would often stay up waiting until they got home. Sometimes they would be a little late, and, a few times, my mother came home very late. On those nights, even if I had to be sent to bed before she got home, I would just lay there unable to sleep until I heard the sound of the garage door opening to announce her arrival. She always did make it home, and I would never have anything to say about it the morning after, but those were some of the scariest nights of my childhood.

I recognized something of those moments during parts of Totoro. When the girls are waiting for their father at the bus stop, they don't discuss their worry at how he's late; they just continue waiting patiently. As they wait, Totoro—that strange, monstrous, possibly imaginary bunny-bear creature—keeps them company. Similarly, those times I was waiting, I would try to read, watch TV, or play my Game Boy—whatever I could find to try to keep myself distracted and my imagination occupied by anything other than what was really on my mind.

That said, it is odd to me that, of all creatures to help these girls cope through their sad and scary moments, they would turn to Totoro, who himself seems kind of scary to me. Seriously, I'm not sure how this thing, with his Chewbacca voice and Cheshire Cat grin, ever came to be perceived as cute, to the extent that sales of Totoro merchandise alone could probably sustain Studio Ghibli, and he has even become their logo. I can only attribute his popularity in Japan to cultural differences. Even freakier is the magical Catbus, with its caterpillar-like legs and that same Cheshire Cat grin. I think these designs show off the playfully eccentric side to Miyazaki's imagination.

Otherwise, My Neighbor Totoro is not the most diverting watch. Never in a hurry to get anywhere, it's not driven by plot, but by the same sort of senseless and unscripted games that kids play with their imaginations when they don't have TV. There are no bad guys, no wisecracks, and not a lot of moralizing. Even when it is tense, it is quiet. I find it a tad boring, and yet perhaps more utterly genuine and even a little poignant among Miyazaki's films. To me, Totoro himself resembles the content of a nightmare, but, in its strongest moments, what the movie does is capture those feelings of child anxiety that give rise to my nightmares.

Grave of the Fireflies

Grave of the Fireflies originally opened in Japanese theaters in 1988 as part of a double bill with My Neighbor Totoro. I considered watching the two films together myself but ultimately had to drop the idea, owing to the reality that I have neither the stamina nor the attention span to sit through 3 straight hours of moving pictures. So Totoro will have to wait until next time.

Back to Grave of the Fireflies, this was the first film that Isao Takahata directed for Studio Ghibli. Although no less esteemed than any of Miyazaki's pictures, it is quite a different work. Takahata's most prolific days apparently came before his time with Ghibli, as he has, to date, directed only four Ghibli movies, compared with Miyazaki's eight. What's interesting is that, whereas Miyazaki has always kept the kids foremost in mind when making his movies, Takahata's works have seemed to aim for older audiences. Only Yesterday (1991), about a 27-year-old office worker reminiscing on her 1960s childhood as she comes to a crossroads in her life, was geared toward adult women, while I imagine that My Neighbors the Yamadas (1999), a series of comic strip-style vignettes about an unremarkable middle-class Japanese family, could only be of amusement to mature middle-class parents. Even the more broadly appealing Pom Poko (1994) evinces a sort of “old folk” nostalgia for bygone times. As for Grave of the Fireflies, although it was originally marketed toward families (obviously, since it played together with My Neighbor Totoro), I think it fair to say that that was a miscalculation, as it is too intense for younger children, and far too stark—the opposite of a feel-good movie—for “family movie night.”

Also in common with Takahata's other Ghibli movies, Grave of the Fireflies is set in the real world in Japan, in this case during the end of World War II—perhaps not the proud nation's finest moment (nor anybody else's, I suppose). It opens on a grim note, presenting us with the dead body of the protagonist, Seita, in a train station, where passersby complain of the starving vagrant boy's disgraceful appearance. The rest of the movie then flashes back to tell us the story of Seita and his four-year-old sister, Setsuko. From the beginning, however, we already know that there will not be a happy ending, and, with Seita evidently having proven unable even to provide for himself, we can imagine that his efforts to take care of his young sister will not make for the most cheerful viewing experience. And, boy, it sure isn't.

The movie was based on a semi-autobiographical novel of the same name by Akiyuki Nosaka, who blamed himself for his sister's death due to malnutrition during WWII. Some viewers have interpreted Grave of the Fireflies as being an antiwar story, and certainly the ravages of war are horrifyingly depicted; despite being animated, the movie presents chillingly graphic images of victims of bombings, and thereafter the planes that cross the sky evoke feelings of foreboding far removed from the romanticism of Miyazaki's aviation sequences. But, as much as this movie shows us the misfortunes of innocent civilians caught in the middle of wars between nations, it is also a story of personal failure.

It would be difficult for any viewer to watch these kids deteriorate toward their miserable outcome, but the pain is magnified considerably when you find yourself able to identify with Seita. If you have kids or younger siblings, or if you've ever otherwise been thrust into a position of responsibility for others' well-being, then perhaps you know how crushing it can be when you feel like you've let them down, even if only just in a small way.

Given charge of his sister when he is only a kid himself, Seita is dealt a poor hand. Even so, his and Setsuko's story need not have ended the way it did. Having lost their parents, Seita and Setsuko at first stay with an aunt. But, fed up with the aunt's resentful attitude toward them, Seita decides to fend for his sister and himself while living in an abandoned bomb shelter. Quickly, they run out of food, and Seita hasn't the means to provide for them. A farmer, barely able to produce enough even for himself, advises Seita to swallow his pride and return to his aunt. But Seita can't. He doesn't even acknowledge the suggestion.

For me, it is this moment in the film that sticks out most painfully, which I think is saying a lot. But so often is it that, when we finally fail, we cannot help but obsessively revisit all our mistakes leading up to that failure, too late owning up to those pivotal moments when we went one way but could have, should have gone another. And, as much as I want to criticize and point out Seita's mistakes, ultimately the movie makes me reflect on my own—the many times I've fallen short. Deep down, I know from experience and self-knowledge that, put in his position, I might likewise place personal pride and selfishness ahead of sense and responsibility, and that's what hurts most. Seita and Setsuko's story is almost unimaginable for those of us fortunate enough to be living free from war and destitution. But guilt is universal, and, in this case, I think it is Seita's (and Nosaka's) guilt that resonates to make Grave of the Fireflies an especially penetrating film.

One other thing that notably distinguishes Grave of the Fireflies (and also Takahata's Only Yesterday) from Miyazaki's films is that the material does not seem obviously suited for animation. The movie depicts a real place and time, with no fantastic elements. Takahata, whose shot composition, dating back as far as Hols: Prince of the Sun (1968), always seemed inspired more by great live-action pictures than by other cartoons, perhaps chose to do Grave of the Fireflies as animation because he never saw animation as necessarily segregated from live action in terms of the subjects that it was fit to tackle. That said, this story could have been done in live action (and, indeed, there has been a live-action adaptation of the novel). But would it have been better in live action? Would it have been worse?

The one thing that the animated Grave of the Fireflies does that perhaps no live-action version could ever do as well is its portrayal of the four-year-old Setsuko. Although, in the Japanese version, Setsuko was voiced by an actual five-year-old, it's hard to imagine any child actress being able to fully act out her heartbreaking arc as convincingly as this hand-drawn character, especially as she progressively physically and emotionally diminishes over the course of the film. It is a testament both to the animators' craft and the medium's potential that so many viewers have been so profoundly moved over the images of this girl who is, after all, “only a cartoon.”

Oh, and if you're wondering why the DVD doesn't look all nice on your shelf next to your other Region 1 Ghibli movies, that's because this is the only Ghibli movie that Disney has never had the US distribution rights to. When Disney arranged to distribute the Studio Ghibli back catalog, it was actually dealing with Tokuma Shoten, which had published all of Ghibli's movies in Japan, with the exception of Grave of the Fireflies, which was produced by Shinchosha, the publisher of the original Akiyuki Nosaka novel.

Castle in the Sky

Director Mamoru Oshii (Ghost in the Shell) once said that he liked Laputa: Castle in the Sky (1986) best among Ghibli movies. Considering that Oshii's own films have always evinced an affinity for darker and more adult themes, it's surprising to me that his favorite Ghibli movie would be arguably the studio's most straightforward boy entertainment. It's a swashbuckling adventure, full of sky pirates, airships, lost cities, chase sequences and daring rescues. If this movie had been available to me as a kid, I'm sure I would have cherished it and watched the VHS tape over and over again. Probably it would have joined the likes of Sleeping Beauty and The Sword in the Stone, as one of those cartoons that I would reenact together with the bossy girl at the family day care, who happened to be my only playmate there, even though I kind of hated her.

Castle in the Sky makes for an enjoyable viewing experience, but not an especially provocative one to stay with you afterward, unless you are of an age to be contemplating floating castles in earnest. There is a definite romanticism to this story and this world, among the most universally appealing (read: least discernibly Japanese) of all Miyazaki's. The main boy and girl are perfectly ordinary children, almost nondescript, that any young viewers who wish should easily be able to see themselves in those roles. The bad guy here is Ghibli's most unambiguously evil—the sort of monster that my child self would always relish role-play slaying, except that this one is just slightly unimpressive-looking.

Coming to it as an adult, I can still appreciate the craftsmanship but never get swept away by the story, which is rather by-the-numbers. To spin all that I've said above another way, Castle in the Sky is narratively conventional, the characters are generic and entirely forgettable, and I don't know that there is anything thematically of substance—certainly nothing for adults, but probably nothing for kids to meaningfully apply on growing up either. And as I re-watch these Miyazaki movies, I'm realizing how utterly devoid of comedic wit they are, which makes for some pretty bland casts. I think perhaps Miyazaki equates cleverness with insincerity. With the exceptions of the villains in this movie, every character, however rough their exterior, is almost insipidly gentle at core, and I'm betting that I'll only be seeing more of that as I get further through his catalog.

But there is room in cinema for gentleness. Castle in the Sky is also a beautiful film, an exciting one, and it has robots! Indeed, the robots were my favorite part, and I wonder if they weren't Miyazaki's as well. The old man claims not to own a computer, says he writes letters instead of emails, and rarely even watches TV. And yet this nature-lover also reveals through his works an affection for technology, so long as it's of the imaginary steampunk variety.

Late in the movie, when our young heroes finally arrive at the lost city of Laputa, they are met by a robot. It can't speak, but it reaches for their glider. Knowing how strong the robot is, the kids fear that it will destroy their craft. But the robot carefully lifts the glider to reveal a bird's nest underneath, which the humans had thoughtlessly landed upon. We also observe that the robot is covered in moss, and birds and the little fox-squirrels from Nausicaa rest and play upon its shoulders. Apparently, after generations with no humans around, Laputa developed into an idyllic paradise of robot and nature existing in perfect harmony together. And I might ask, what's the point if there are no people? But, of course, things literally fall apart once the humans do arrive.

One last note regarding the soundtrack: For the English version, Disney had Joe Hisaishi rework the score. He replaced the original synthesizer soundtrack with symphony orchestra recordings for a much fuller sound, also adding music to scenes that had none in the Japanese version, so as to make it more suitable for American markets. Hisaishi and Miyazaki were both reportedly quite pleased with the results, and I personally wished Disney would have made similar arrangements for its Nausicaa release. Instead, on Disney's most recent 2010 DVD of Castle in the Sky, they apparently ditched the new music and reinserted the original score into even the English version. Frankly, I find it baffling that all that work would just go abandoned now, especially given that the Japanese audio track has always been there as an option for anyone who prefers it. I'm hoping that they'll include the re-score as an option on the upcoming Blu-ray (I understand that it's on the UK and Australian Blu-rays, not released by Disney).

John Lasseter Presents Studio Ghibli

In January 2006, Turner Classic Movies and Pixar's John Lasseter hosted a month-long, nine-film festival of the work of Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli. Here's their intro to Nausicaa:

I've uploaded the rest of the intro segments to my YouTube channel here. They're rather thin, but I thought maybe some people would find them of interest.

Excuse the video quality; these were taken off years-old VHS tapes, originally recorded SLP mode off TV.

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind

I first saw Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (1984) when Disney released the North American DVD in 2005, after having already seen Spirited Away (2001), Princess Mononoke (1997), and Castle in the Sky (1986). At the time, I was pretty disappointed with it, and I thought it looked and sounded incredibly dated. Now, going through the Ghibli movies in order, and a few years removed from my last having viewed any of Miyazaki's later works, I am better able to appreciate it in context and with more reasonable expectations, although I would still consider it among my least favorite of his films.

Although released a year before Studio Ghibli formally existed, Nausicaa's success is what led to the studio's establishment, and it is nowadays usually included as part of the Ghibli catalog. For the animation work, Tokuma Shoten Publishing contracted Topcraft, a studio which had previously done a bunch of Rankin/Bass features, including The Last Unicorn (1982). Many of the artists and staff at Topcraft would afterward join Studio Ghibli and work on Castle in the Sky.

I wish there were more to say regarding that lineage from The Last Unicorn to this, but Nausicaa is clearly Miyazaki's show, and I think Topcraft probably just followed along with his directorial style and specifications. A pre-CGI animated film, it's not as technically sophisticated as more recent Ghibli movies, and I found it somewhat visually bland overall. It's not a bad-looking film by any means, but the palette seems more limited than even the earlier Castle of Cagliostro (1979), and the settings—desert, valley, jungle, and cave—are dull and repetitive, which perhaps befits the barren, post-apocalyptic world of Nausicaa.

Nausicaa also marked the first collaboration between Miyazaki and composer Joe Hisaishi, although the eclectic, synth-heavy score is by far the most jarring part of the viewing experience. It isn't bad, but it definitely dates the production more than anything else.

But it's the storytelling that I find most problematic in Nausicaa. I tend to group Miyazaki's stories into a couple different categories. Castle in the Sky, Spirited Away, and Howl's Moving Castle are the “adventures.” My Neighbor Totoro and Ponyo are “kid stuff.” And Nausicaa and Princess Mononoke are his “message” movies. And that message, which is also present, though to a less heavy-handed extent, in nearly all his other movies as well, is always the same—basically, human beings are screwing up the planet with their destructive ways.

Nausicaa takes place in a post-nuclear holocaust world where the land is being overtaken by a “toxic jungle” swarming with gigantic mutant insects called Ohmu. And yet who are the bad guys in this story? It's us, of course! It's always us! First, human beings, with their war and pollution, brought the earth to its ruinous condition. Fine, I can go along with that. But, not only that, now that we've come to this point of having a cancerous forest of death and these insane, monstrous bugs bearing down on us, we are the ones still in the wrong to be fighting back? You mean these deadly and disgusting Ohmu are really naturally peaceful creatures, who only go a little nuts when we humans disturb their tranquility with our hostile aura? And that toxic jungle is actually a good and vital part of the ecosystem, even though it's completely lethal to us and kills all the things we depend on for life? And all our attempts to fix things will only lead to planetary death, because we don't know what's good for us or for the earth, but the earth itself does, so we should just submit ourselves to its will, as though it has one?

The story is not made any less insufferable by the character of Nausicaa, young princess of the Valley of the Wind, who is apparently the one good and capable person in the entire world of this movie. In The Castle of Cagliostro, the Clarisse character could have been seen by some as a “Mary Sue” type—an improbably immaculate heroine inserted into someone else's already existing fiction, to win the heart of the hero, charm all the other guys, and otherwise dominate the spotlight. Here, in a world that is entirely Miyazaki's own creation, Nausicaa almost comes across the same way. Unerringly wise and pure, Nausicaa strains the viewer's willing suspension of disbelief, while her humorless preachiness tries one's patience.

It's almost as if the characterization of Nausicaa is overly idealized in order to compensate for the film's otherwise pessimistic outlook. Indeed, it's always struck me as one of those odd contradictions of Miyazaki, that the guy who gives us such consistently crowd-pleasing family movies should also just as consistently come across as a cynical grump in interviews. But the cynicism is there in his movies as well; remove Nausicaa from this story, and it becomes bleakly fatalistic. Perhaps that's how Miyazaki really sees things, and a hardened adult viewer might agree with that part and declare Nausicaa an out-of-place unrealistic element. On the other hand, one has to remember that Miyazaki writes for children. At the age that he's speaking to, kids probably shouldn't be feeling any sour grapes toward cartoon characters, but maybe they can actually look to Nausicaa's example as something to aspire toward. Maybe inserting these triumphantly optimistic characters then is Miyazaki's way of inspiring and giving hope to the kids who are his own small bit of hope.

But, for me, it's far more amusing to observe how quickly things unravel whenever Nausicaa is not around. Early on, her village is subjugated by troops led by Princess Kushana of Tolmekia. Before Nausicaa is then sent away as a hostage, she asks for her people's cooperation. It's not long after Nausicaa is gone, however, before rioting breaks out in the Valley of the Wind. Later, when a stampede of Ohmu threatens both the villagers and the occupying Tolmekians, and Nausicaa is nowhere to be found, everybody is just resigned to depending on the strongest leader figure around, who happens to be Kushana. And what is her plan? Why, she's going to unleash a “Giant Warrior,” one of the living nuclear weapons that previously ravaged the earth. Things go about as well as you would expect from a hopeless bunch improvising one inadvisable strategy after another. But these are the parts that totally ring true to me!

Speaking of Kushana, it's also interesting that, as little faith as Miyazaki seems to have in humanity, he is also known for eschewing flatly villainous characters in his movies. Although the closest thing the story has to an antagonist, Kushana's not really evil. She's not conflicted like Hilda from Hols: Prince of the Sun either, but she's an adversary who sees herself as the good guy. To me, that makes her a far less emotionally resonant character than Hilda, but she is nevertheless my favorite in this movie. Voiced by Uma Thurman in the English dub, she gets all the best lines. Remarking on the left arm she lost to the insects (and which perhaps drives her Ahab-like crusade against the Ohmu), she says, ever proud, “And whatever lucky man becomes my husband will see worse than that!”

She also plays a key part in one of Nausicaa's more memorable scenes, the aforementioned unleashing of the Giant Warrior, which provides the most visually striking image in the movie. The creature is something out of a nightmare. It is monstrously powerful and menacing in appearance, yet straining just to hold itself together, its flesh oozing off the bone, as though its mere existence entails the most agonizing exertion against biological limitations imaginable. I was strongly reminded of the similarly grotesque Eva Units from Neon Genesis Evangelion, and it came as no surprise to learn that the animator in charge of the scene was none other than a young Hideaki Anno, later the creator of Evangelion.

There is at least one other scene in Nausicaa that might fairly be called “great.” Occurring about an hour in, it's animated in a stylized manner resembling pencil sketches, and accompanied hauntingly by the sound of a young girl's humming. It features a child Nausicaa trying in vain to hide a baby Ohmu from her father, who insists that humans and insects cannot live together. Half a dream, half a memory, it lasts two minutes and afterward is not remarked upon. But those two minutes manage to convey all that the story intends for the viewer to understand about the quality of Nausicaa's character and about the Ohmu, and the scene nearly redeemed both those elements for me. If only Miyazaki could have shown a little more restraint throughout the rest of the movie.

Sherlock Hound

It may have been premature to call The Castle of Cagliostro the end of an era for Miyazaki. Before going ahead with Nausicaa, he returned, under a pseudonym, to TV and to Lupin in 1980, directing two episodes, including the finale, of the Lupin III Part II series. His next TV anime after that was Sherlock Hound in 1981.

Miyazaki directed six episodes of Sherlock Hound, before the project was shelved over a dispute with the estate of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It was not until 1984, when Miyazaki edited together two episodes to serve as the opening cartoon to Nausicaa, that the material resurfaced. It was a hit with audiences, and, with the earlier dispute since resolved, Tokyo Movie Shinsha decided to expand it into a full 26-episode series, although, by this point, Miyazaki was working on his movies and no longer involved with the show.

The entire series can now be found on TMS's YouTube channel. Most viewers today would probably only be interested in Miyazaki's episodes, and the YouTube channel features them as the first six (beyond that, I don't know if they're in any particular order, but I don't get the sense it much matters). FYI, the two episodes that aired with Nausicaa were "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle" (episode 2 on the YouTube) and "Treasure Under the Sea" (episode 3).

I only watched those two episodes, and I'm not really interested in seeing more, because, to be honest, I didn't find it all that captivating. But it's definitely a Miyazaki work, particularly resembling Castle of Cagliostro. Although more clearly aimed at children, Sherlock Hound is similarly a fast-paced and lighthearted slapstick action program, full of car chases and aviation sequences, as highlighted right in the opening credits sequence. Other Miyazaki-isms include the Victorian ambiance and a number of steampunk contraptions.

For me, the most amusing bit was a scene in "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle," where Sherlock Hound, driving a primitive automobile with no mirrors, shifts into reverse in pursuit of some bad guys. The episode ends with another thrilling chase sequence. Otherwise, the show is interesting mainly because, even as it bears many of his hallmarks, it's hard to imagine Miyazaki making anything so outright playful and wide-eyed idealistic today.

On the whole, the show seems well-crafted. An unmistakably 80s cartoon, it's kind of cute, kind of charming, but also a little juvenile and a little boring for me. Probably best enjoyed watching with kids.

Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro

Since viewing Hols: Prince of the Sun, I've been inspired to slowly go back through my collection of Studio Ghibli movies to see how Miyazaki and Takahata grew as artists. Before even getting to the Ghibli movies, however, I decided to re-watch Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro (1979), the first feature film that Hayao Miyazaki ever directed.

The Castle of Cagliostro came out over ten years after Hols: Prince of the Sun, so I'm actually skipping over a significant chunk of Miyazaki's development here. But, to provide a context, following Hols, Miyazaki had continued to hone his craft as an animator on a couple more Toei productions, including Puss 'n Boots (1969) and Animal Treasure Island (1971). After leaving Toei, he mostly worked in television together with Takahata on a number of series, including Future Boy Conan (1978), and three acclaimed adaptations of classic children's stories—Heidi, Girl of the Alps (1974), 3000 Leagues in Search of Mother (1976), and Anne of Green Gables (1979)—which aired as part of Nippon Animation's pioneering “World Masterpiece Theater” program on Sunday evenings. I've never seen any of this stuff, as it's all pretty obscure or unavailable in the US.

Americans may be slightly more familiar with Lupin III, originally a 1967 manga created by a guy writing under the name Monkey Punch. The Mad magazine-inspired comic followed the raunchy adventures of the world's greatest thief, Lupin, supposedly the grandson of French author Maurice Leblanc's gentleman thief character, Arsene Lupin, although Monkey Punch's work was completely unauthorized by the Leblanc estate.

In 1971, Lupin III was adapted into a 23-episode TV anime. This too has never been available in the US (although that is scheduled to change in June), so I've never seen it. But many Ghibli fans perhaps know that most of the episodes were directed by Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata. So, although Miyazaki did not create Lupin, he did have a history with and probably a certain feeling of proprietorship over the character when he later co-wrote and directed Castle of Cagliostro. By some accounts, this movie was the culmination, not only of Miyazaki's involvement with Lupin III, but of his entire body of work in animation up to that point.

Most people checking out Castle of Cagliostro today probably do so after hearing that it was Miyazaki's first movie, and so they approach it as though seeing his beginning. But, in another way, it may also have marked the ending to a chapter in his career. Certainly, Castle of Cagliostro is unique among Miyazaki's films.

It still looks and feels in many ways like a Ghibli movie. Miyazaki and his mentor Yasuo Otsuka handled the character designs, which are a little softer and gentler than some other interpretations of Lupin and his gang. Miyazaki also finds a way to insert an autogyro into the film, indulging his love of flight. And, like Miyazaki's later works, Castle of Cagliostro is a family-friendly crowd-pleaser. And yet, watching it, one gets the sense that there was, not necessarily a less mature director at work, but a younger, more optimistic man at the helm. What Castle of Cagliostro lacks that is common to Miyazaki's later works are the old man's preachiness and condescension.

Maybe it's because Lupin III was not his own creation, and so his authorial voice was limited by the original source material. Or maybe he just hadn't grown into such a pessimistic grump yet; Nausicaa (1984), although the proto-Ghibli work, actually came out after Miyazaki was already in his 40s. In any case, Castle of Cagliostro is, in my opinion, the most purely fun movie Miyazaki ever directed, feeling rather like an animated version of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

It's a caper film that is high on adventure and light on logic. When Lupin and his buddy Jigen meet Princess Clarisse fleeing from men working for her husband-to-be, the villainous Count, it's up to the rascally yet chivalrous Lupin to sneak into the Count's castle and pull off, not a theft, but a rescue. Lupin's swordsman friend Goemon, femme fatale Fujiko, and nemesis Inspector Zenigata all get involved as well.

Yeah, the film experience probably loses a little if you're not already acquainted with these Lupin III regulars, but it's not as big a deal as you might think. Castle of Cagliostro was my introduction to Lupin III, but it didn't take me long to feel like I knew these characters. Their histories are only about as relevant as James Bond's is to most 007 movies; longtime fans will find more to appreciate, but the film is also self-contained, and the personalities are not overly complex. Nevertheless, this is, without a doubt, the most charismatic cast of characters Miyazaki ever had to work with (no kids!), and it's easy to see why Lupin III's popularity endures even apart from his involvement. Cowboy Bebop is largely just a futuristic Lupin III, coupled with a bunch of references to Western cinema.

There is an interesting tension here resulting from the intersection of Monkey Punch's characters, more madcap and roguish than any found in Miyazaki's Ghibli works, and the character of Clarisse, most likely Miyazaki's own creation, who seems a sort of prototype of the strong, independent female protagonists of his later films. The two seem like they should be a poor fit, as though they shouldn't be able to coexist in the same story without compromising one or both, which is arguably the case here, with some critics contending, on the one hand, that the Castle of Cagliostro Lupin has been emasculated from his original incarnation, while, on the other hand, Clarisse is disappointingly weak compared to later Miyazaki heroines. With Lupin starring in the gallant hero role, the gentle Clarisse is left somewhat as a damsel-in-distress character, rather subdued compared to Nausicaa or Princess Mononoke's San. But she is also virtuous with a latent inner strength, and, as Lupin's heroism steadily instills her with confidence in him, she gains confidence in herself as well, even saving Lupin's life on multiple occasions. Meanwhile, those acquainted with the Lupin character outside of Castle of Cagliostro might note that it is a departure for Lupin to play the gallant hero at all. Taking that into consideration, it may be that, as much as he inspires Clarisse, she likewise inspires him to become more than what he has been.

Since watching Castle of Cagliostro for the first time, I've seen a handful of episodes of the second Lupin III TV series (1977) (no Miyazaki episodes), and what struck me was how irreverent it was, and what bastards Lupin and his gang were, out only for money and themselves. Yet this was reportedly much truer to the source material, and also how the characters are usually portrayed. That the Castle of Cagliostro Lupin, actually anomalous, is so much tamer is usually chalked up by detractors to the fact that Miyazaki is more comfortable producing for children, and so he watered the character down for young audiences. Except that, within the movie, Lupin actually reflects disapprovingly upon his younger, more reckless, more money-driven self. This was not just a flashback; it was a reference to the Lupin of the TV series that Miyazaki had previously worked on. Yes, the Castle of Cagliostro Lupin was different from the Lupin that fans knew; he was older, maybe a little weary of the thief's life, as perhaps Miyazaki himself was growing weary of silly cartoon adventures. Maybe Miyazaki was, in a way, preparing to lay to rest the part of his life that Lupin represented, by depicting a Lupin now susceptible to being tamed by Clarisse, who embodied Miyazaki's new direction and values going forward (though mercifully no sign yet of his tiresome, heavy-handed environmental messages).

Again, none of this context is really necessary to enjoy the film just as a fun adventure—maybe the most effortless Miyazaki ever directed. But it did enhance my appreciation for Castle of Cagliostro as the sendoff to a more innocent chapter in Miyazaki's career. He never made another one quite like this.

Hols: Prince of the Sun

Browsing through Hulu's free movie collection to see if there were any gems hidden among the piles of Lifetime Movies on offer, I came upon an old cartoon titled Little Norse Prince Valiant (1968). It sounded vaguely familiar, and, on reading the description, I realized that this was a localized version of the Japanese anime Hols: Prince of the Sun, the first film ever directed by Isao Takahata (Grave of the Fireflies). Fellow Studio Ghibli co-founder Hayao Miyazaki also worked on the film as an animator.

I had never seen Hols, but I had heard it described before by anime historians as a landmark work and essential viewing for Ghibli buffs. Although it was a commercial flop upon its original theatrical release, it sparked a move away from the mostly Disney-esque fare that Toei had been putting out at the time. Many would credit this movie as the turning point that opened Japan's eyes to the broader artistic potential for animation as an auteur's medium. The version on Hulu is maybe not the best way to view Hols; it's pan-and-scan, and the print shows its age, looking like someone's personal copy taped off TV (and, this being Hulu, there are also commercials). But, hey, it's a free presentation of a movie that's hard to come by in the US, and there's still enough there to appreciate beneath all the grain.

Yes, it's a charming film, if also dated and somewhat juvenile, better appreciated with some context and historical perspective. Ironically, for all that is made of how this picture established anime as something distinct from the Disney formula, in a lot of ways it more closely resembles classic Disney animated movies than it does, say, Akira or Ghost in the Shell. Of course, I would also contend that the Ghibli movies have a lot more in common with Disney than with almost anything else out of Japan. But Hols even feels somewhere between a Disney and a Ghibli film, with its musical numbers, its talking animal characters, and its heroic hero and villainous villain.

Takahata's direction helps the film to stand out. His framing is dynamic, and the opening action sequence, wherein our ax-wielding hero Hols does battle with a pack of wolves, is more sophisticated in its composition than anything found in contemporary Disney movies. The most inventive shot in the movie is a point-of-view shot from Hols's perspective, as he teeters on the edge of a cliff, hanging on by a rope whose other end is held by the evil sorcerer Grunwald. As Hols and the camera focus on Grunwald, the rope between them becomes a blur.

The characters are somewhat simple and crudely drawn, but the animation is smooth, notwithstanding that the story's two busiest action scenes are no more than slideshows of pans across static images.

Cinephiles can more closely dissect the film's visual aspects, but the narrative doesn't really get going until about halfway into its 80-minute run time. For the most part, this is a simple kids movie (well, actually, a little convoluted and nonsensical, but broadly conventional) about good versus evil. About halfway through, however, viewers are introduced to the character of Hilda, who (SPOILER) is Grunwald's sister, sent to sabotage Hols by pretending to be his friend. It is upon Hilda's arrival that we begin to see the more Ghibli, less Disney side to Hols. Hilda is the only interesting character in the story, and I would say that, beyond anything Takahata contributes to the film's technical aspects, it is Hilda particularly that makes Hols: Prince of the Sun a historically noteworthy and memorable movie.

For the historian, Hilda is notable for two reasons. First, she prefigures the strong, independent female characters that audiences have since come to identify with Studio Ghibli, Miyazaki's works in particular. No mere damsel in distress, she is a pivotal agent toward the outcome for either side. Second, in a story that is otherwise fairly black-and-white, with a very Disney-esque villain, Hilda occupies a gray area. She is not either wholly good or wholly evil by nature, but she operates according to a continually developing set of perceptions and values, with good or evil results.

It is that latter dimension to the Hilda character that most distinguishes Hols from a Disney movie. It challenges its young viewers to try to understand why good people might do bad things, which actually isn't that hard a concept to convey when you respect your audience. I don't imagine, for most kids, that it's very long after they learn the rules before they start knowingly breaking some of them. Maybe the real lesson is that it's hard to be good. Maybe real life is, to some extent, a good-versus-evil narrative, only, instead of it being you versus the bad guys, the struggle is more internal within each of us. That is the struggle within Hilda that the movie openly and earnestly depicts. In this way, Hols manages to engage kids on a poignant level beyond most kids cartoons even over 40 years later, by speaking to parts of them that most cartoons would prefer to ignore or deny.

I wouldn't say Hols is a very intellectually challenging kids movie; most of it is inexplicable fantasy nonsense, somewhat clumsily told. But it's more emotionally complex than most American cartoons, its darker layers perhaps its most resonant. Although it's a tad crude by modern standards, in its raw earnestness, it also feels more sincere than most stuff today out of either the US or Japan. It doesn't abuse the trust of its young audience to try to sell it much more than the artists' own values and vision.

Of course, this all doesn't make for an especially entertaining or enriching experience for more casual adult audiences today, but if you've got 80 minutes (plus commercials) to spare, maybe check it out and see where Takahata and Miyazaki kind of got their start, in the process also setting anime down its path toward something truly distinct from what cartoons had been up to that point.

Hulu also has Miyazaki and Takahata's Panda! Go Panda! (1972), although that one may be a little too kiddy even for me . . . .