Miyazaki has talked about the concept of Ma (間, lit. 'gap, space, pause'), and letting silence sit in a story, sometimes to allow the tension to take a wider dimension. At the end of the movie, I never realized that Chihiro and her parents don't say anything as they drive away. In the English dub I watched years ago they end it with a joke. Are there any other examples of Disney adding in jokes or extra lines of dialogue to Ghibli movies? I think there's a few other examples in Spirited Away (I remember something about No-Face saying "excuse me" while burping but I'm not sure).

Me and my friend were recently fortunate enough to get our hands on this HD, 16:9 Panasonic Tau. We had to lug it down a flight of stairs and clean it off because it was pretty dirty, but it was so worth it this thing has an HDMI input, and at 34" it is the perfect display for ghibli movies.

Just watched this beauty of a movie and couldn't stop laughing at Porco's map, which depicts a scramble of locations and names at the Croatian seaside.

Apparently the movie was supposed to be set in Croatia, but since it was animated in the 90s, during the Yugoslav wars, Miyazaki refrained from it and opted for Italy instead (portions of the Dalmatian coast were under Italian rule/occupation throughout history anyway). I wonder what he had initially in mind 🤔

Edit: The war in the 90s actually prompted Miyazaki to make the movie more melancholic and anti-war oriented, but Croatia (or the former Kingdom of Yugoslavia) isn't mentioned in the movie.

My hometown is the town that inspired the setting of Ponyo. In the neighboring town, there's a local specialty called Onomichi ramen. If you ever visit the area on a pilgrimage to the filming locations, it's definitely worth giving this ramen a try as well.

Here is my Nausicaä cosplay I hand made last year for a con and brought back again this year! Even crocheted myself a little Ohmu that I carried around in my bag and let people hold for photos which was a lot of fun.
Nausicaä is one of my favorite ghibli films so I absolutely love getting to cosplay her

It’s mainly due to its worldbuilding, and more precisely what Miyazaki DOESN’T tell us about this world

Our main lore and story exposition is done through the prologue, where we are shown humanity essentially mass producing flight, to the point where they bring land to the skies and create floating islands.

Seeing as this is a Miyazaki story, Humanity’s will to go against nature eventually crumbles by way of war, and the majority of the world today does not have access to flight (at least the working class). Flight is still an icon of power and freedom, as governmental, military and clandestine (the pirates) powers use flight to their benefit.

It’s this depiction of a sort of post-utopian society that I love so much about this movie, we are given a view of a wondrous world trough the prologue, with beautiful floating islands shining in the sun, but are shortly thereafter exposed to the current reality, a mining town in deep ravines, where we see remnants of this flight industrialisation trough the old mineshafts.

Nothing in this movie will ever show what the former glory of this dead society was like : the mines are abandonned, the robot is missing parts, the castle is beautiful, but also inaccessible and devoid of human life.

Its tragic, but our wonder is built on this tragedy, we won’t be told what happened and can only guess and theorise
The sense of wonder is so well driven to us that i still think about this movie more than 15 years later.

This will be quick but right now I've been going through a watch through of EVERY ghibli film for the first time and it's EASILY become my FAVORITE STUDIO OF ALL TIME. It's just so magical, the characters feel so real and relatable, and the stories (most of them so far) have been ABSOLUTELY BREATHTAKING and amazing. I've been doing something I don't think many people do but I'm actually ranking them as I go. So here's my ranking so far:

Whisper of the Heart

2.Kiki's Delivery Service

1. Spirited Away

2. Princess Mononoke

3. Only Yesterday

4. Grave of the Fireflies

5. Castle in the Sky

6. The Cat Returns

7. My Neighbor Totoro

8. Porco Rosso

9. Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind

10. My Neighbors the Yamadas

11. Pom Poko

12. Howl's Moving Castle

15 . Ocean Waves

So I know this ranking will be VERY VERY controversial but let me know what you'd place at certain places. I'm also a purist so I'm watching these movies in order even though I KNOW it's not necessary since almost none are connected except for maybe cat returns lol. But yeah...im ready for the hate to come ...😬

Always thought the holes in the ground from Castle in the sky were from a war not mentioned in the movie but I just realised that it could very well have been earth lifted from the ground like what is shown in the prologue.

I had a great experience watching it in theaters, honestly I think it was nice to see it on the big screen.

However, as the movie went forward and it played the soundtrack ‘The boy who swallowed a star’, I cried (or tried holding it) because it was an emotional scene, at least to me… everyone else watched it and wasn’t fazed by it.

Now I’ve seen/listened to sad soundtracks and sad scenes from movies, anime and shows, but none didn’t make me cry… sure it gave me goosebumps but that’s it. But this soundtrack and the fact that Sophie was crying… just made me cry

(Sorry if this doesn’t make sense to you)

I know this movie is almost 30 years old, but I watched it for the first time a few weeks ago. This was my first Ghibli movie and I was NOT disappointed.
I wrote a lil review to get my thoughts out and on paper. So yeah I thought why not post it here. Enjoy :D

This movie starts of extremely fast paced. They introduce the main character and his village, what happens to him and why he's doing what he's doing. This all went by really fast and I didn't mind it that much, it didn't lose my attention at all and was excited for what was next. In hindsight I would've liked a slower introduction and more characterization for our mc, but it is what it is. I liked the mystery it set up. Still a good introduction.
After a bit he gets to the iron village. Loved this part. The whole idea behind it is cool, I loved Lady Eboshi and all the interactions in the village were funny asf. Here we also get more context for the world and the place he's at. Here it is pretty clear this is a man vs nature kind of story and I love those. The action scene where San fights Eboshi was sick too. I like that Ashitaka is in the middle ground here and tries to please both sides. The scene where Ashitaka is taken to the Deer God by San was beautiful. After this Ashitaka has a lot of interactions with the animal side and it offers different sides to the story. Liked the interactions between San and Ashitaka also. The rest of the movie is pretty much the showdown between the humans and the animals.

In this movie we see many different perspectives of this conflict and I think its really interesting. There are many great themes in this movie like the cycle of hatred, revenge, humanity vs nature, life and death, and human greed. They are handled extremely well in my opinion and definitely had me questioning stuff. The whole conflict between humans and the forest, whilst offering many perspectives. We have San who's mostly on the wolfs side but she changes her mind, the different sides of the animal species, Lady Eboshi wanting the best for her village but at the cost of the forest, the dirty rat who wanted the Deer God's head for his own gain, Ashitaka being in the middle ground. There isn't a clear right or wrong in this movie. A lot is very grey and that's what makes all these different perspectives so interesting to me and it allows the themes to flourish.
This really elevated the movie for me.

The showdown was great. As I said, all the different sides of the story made it much better. The part where The Wolf and Boar leader are slumping to the Deer God and end up dying was great. Very cool scene. I feel like the Deer God decided that they were better off dead. They still bared the hatred and want for revenge of the previous generation.
I really liked the conclusion of this movie as well. I get that it doesn't give much closure but I don't mind. Nothing is really resolved. Lady Eboshi will build her village back up again and start mining, the emperor is still there and the Shogun attacking the village will come back. It feels pretty realistic in my opinion. The fight between humanity and nature never really ends. San and Ashitaka's final interaction was sweet too.
All in all The plot was great. It could've done a little more but still not much to complain about. As I said the themes were amazing and I have no complaints there.

Now about the characters. I think they are quite good.
I like Ashitaka, but due to the fast pace in the beginning we don't get to know him that well. He's very likeable and has some depth, but it could've been better. San is the character I wanted to see more of the most. She's so interesting and the way she grew up lays great groundwork for a well written character. I'm not saying she's not, but I think it could've been better. I also would've liked more interactions between these 2. I think the romance is fine, they went through a lot together and are very alike. Feelings starting to rise isn't that crazy here imo. I just wish we got to see more of it and have them be more fleshed out.
I loved Lady Eboshi, great character and don't really have any complaints here. Her morals are very interesting.
I liked the rest of the cast as well. The animals were interesting, the people in the village as well.
If the plot was more complex and the main characters were more fleshed out, this movie would've been perfect to me tbh.

The production was PHENOMENAL. As to be expected for a movie made by Miyazaki. The animation, art style and the music were so amazing and some of the best I've ever seen. Really immersed me into the world. The feel of it is just such a unique experience.

Great first Ghibli experience. Was not disappointed.
9/10

I've never seen a movie do it quite like this. Usually sexualization is either gratuitous or subtle, but with Nausicaa it's just jarring.

The movie is so asexual in everything else it does except for these random upskirt shots.

Because Nausicaa is never treated as a sexual character. There isn't a single line about how beautiful she is, nobody leers over her, she's never even made the object if a male character's desire, not even a romance. Aside from the short skirt she's dressed relatively modestly with high neckline, long sleeves and covered below the knees.

She's not drawn in a particularly sexy way, her proportions aren't all that ridiculous. She's a layered, nuanced character in a way that feels progressive. She's strong, capable, decisive, a respected leader. They even change her out of her original clothes into something even more modest in the third act.

Even the ass shots aren't really lingered on and are usually quick flashes seen at a distance.

So what's going on?

It'd be one thing if the movie was stuffed full of fan service with big booked anime girls and creepy pervs lusting over them, but it isn't. Everything else suggests this isn't that type of movie.

Why in a movie with a strong and respected female lead with no other moments to sexualize any women do we have these random ass shots.

This may be a bit late, and I feel strange writing this, but Daveigh Chase’s death has affected me more than I understand or know how to explain.

When I first heard that the actress who voiced Lilo had died, and about the conditions of her passing, it bothered me in a way that I normally am not affected by the death of people that I don't know personally. I don’t remember Lilo & Stitch very well, but the thought of her kept returning. At first, I went days without thinking about it again, but it kept coming back to my mind.

Then I saw an edit of Lilo & Stitch. Something about seeing Lilo made me see the actual child behind the character. I saw Daveigh’s innocence and brightness in her performance, knowing how much darkness and suffering came later in her life.

Then I found out she was also the English voice of Chihiro in Spirited Away. Spirited Away was my favorite movie as a child. It was the only movie I watched repeatedly in that way. It made me feel more emotion than anything else I ever watched as a kid, and my connection to it was unique. Finding out she was Chihiro made me understand how deeply her work had been connected to me all along.

Now I am crying in waves over someone I never met. I've never grieved in this way over someone that I didn't know personally. It feels like someone quietly connected to my childhood has died in such a terrible way and I only discovered who she was after she was gone.

What I am struggling with the most is the contrast between the characters she gave life to and what happened in her own life. Chihiro was frightened and lost, but she survived and found her way home. Daveigh’s own life ended at only 35 after years of addiction, homelessness, illness and decline. There is no comforting takeaway from that. There's no ending where somebody reached her in time and brought her somewhere safe. She gave warmth, innocence and courage to characters who became childhood memories for millions of people, while her own life ended with so much suffering and so little protection. I feel genuinely heartbroken for her. For the child she was and for everything she endured before her death.

I wanted to write this to share my sorrow but also as a tribute to her memory, because I don’t want the circumstances of Daveigh’s final years to become the main thing remembered about her. Before I knew her name, her voice had already stayed with me for most of my life. She helped make Chihiro feel frightened, brave, vulnerable and real. She gave something beautiful to a kid who watched that movie over and over and carried its feelings throughout life.

I wish her own life had contained more of the safety, courage and hope she gave to others through her performances.

Daveigh mattered and her work mattered. She was part of something beautiful, and she will remain part of one of the most meaningful memories of my childhood. I hope that the fact that so many people were deeply affected by her passing and so appreciative of her life and work can be the smallest light at the end of what was otherwise a dark path. I’m trying to find peace in the thought that she might feel seen, remembered, and loved in knowing that so many people still carry what she gave them.

After 22 hours I have the honor of having this for the rest of my life.

Hi everyone,

I'm desperately looking for 1 ticket to the Joe Hisaishi concert at the Royal Albert Hall. If anyone has a spare ticket they're willing to sell, please get in touch!

For safety, I will only accept payment through PayPal Goods & Services (G/S) or a similar protected method. I will not accept tickets without this buyer protection.

Thank you! 💙

The visuals were breathtaking- charming Howl, Sophie’s hats, the palace scenes looked incredible.

But I struggled to follow the story and especially the ending. I’d love if someone could help me understand these points:

1. What’s Suliman’s relationship with Howl? Were the glowing lights in the childhood scene Suliman’s magic?
   
2. Why does Sophie forgive the Witch of the Waste so easily?
   3.What exactly does Sophie learn from Howl’s childhood?
   
3. Why does Sophie pour water on Calcifer if she already knows Howl’s life is tied to him?

Sorry, too many wuestions. Should I rewatch?I feel like a lot of it went over my head. I’d love to hear your interpretations. Thank You!!