# Best Miyazaki Film? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 23, 2010, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-miyazaki-film/551183 "2010-08-23T17:45:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![choie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/choie/32/7829_2.png) [@choie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/choie)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2010, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-miyazaki-film/551183/21 "2010-08-23T23:30:54Z")
I’ve seen everything on the list except the _Castle of Cagliostro, Castle in the Sky, Ponyo_ and _Porco Rosso_. > [@Balance](#): > > It was a tough call between _Spirited Away_ and _Howl’s Moving Castle_, but I finally went with the former. Ditto the first half of the sentence – but in my case I chose _Howl’s Moving Castle_, only because I knew _Spirited Away_ would get the most votes and I wanted to show a little love to _Howl_. Of course, I know HMC isn’t an original story (then again, I don’t know if SA is original either). But it’s a gorgeous, romantic film and I love rewatching it. Both films highlight the message of Miyazaki films that I most appreciate: the redemptive power of compassion. ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2010, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-miyazaki-film/551183/22 "2010-08-23T23:50:20Z")
Of the ones I’ve seen, which are My Neighbor Totoro, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle and Ponyo, I picked Princess Mononoke. Probably because I think it has the most “current” theme - the balance between development and respecting the environment. ---
**Author:** ![Philliam](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/philliam/32/3011_2.png) [@Philliam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philliam)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2010, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-miyazaki-film/551183/23 "2010-08-24T00:27:56Z")
From my limited experience: “Mononoke” - thematic material and a gorgeous soundtrack by Jo Hisaishi “Totoro” - my daughter grew up with this movie (and it has a Catbus!) “Spirited”/"Howl -tied “Porco” - but I love Miyazaki’s 30’s-era airplanes. All of these are better than 90% of Hollywood’s output. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2010, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-miyazaki-film/551183/24 "2010-08-24T01:28:46Z")
Tough call. I like Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away equally as well. I think I have to give it to Sprited Away since I’ve bought the DVD for that one and haven’t for Princess Mononoke despite meaning to. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2010, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-miyazaki-film/551183/25 "2010-08-24T02:53:54Z")
I’d also add that seeing Spirited Away in the theater was one of the most beautiful movies I’ve seen on screen. The large screen really showed the details the small screen can’t capture. ---
**Author:** ![Kilmore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/a6a055/32.png) [@Kilmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kilmore)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2010, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-miyazaki-film/551183/26 "2010-08-24T04:04:59Z")
I don’t know about the movie, but the Nausicaa comic is tremendously epic and fantastic. ---
**Author:** ![lshaw](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e36b37/32.png) [@lshaw](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lshaw)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2010, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-miyazaki-film/551183/27 "2010-08-24T04:35:06Z")
It’s between _Princess Mononoke_ and _Spirited Away_ for me. Both are very rich in thematic content. Princess Mononoke is an epic portrait that confronts long held notions of homogeneous Japanese identity, idealized harmony, progress, and spiritual loss. Interesting, complex female characters are major players who defamiliarize conventional notions of advancement, history, and gender coding as well as undermining a plethora of female stereotypes. I think it is a very complex and elegant piece of work, unlike the other films out there that are really just a facile stereotype of technology/industrialization culture as evil, where some ruthless one-dimensional human male pits his draconian technology against helpless nature (hello _Avatar_!). Spirited Away presents a startling vision of excess, materialism, consumption, and toxicity plaguing contemporary Japanese society. I suppose it’s also a coming of age story that offers the potential for cultural recovery and identity renewal in a postindustrial society threatened by pollution within and without. Symbolically, it is stunning; for example, I thought it was clever to use No Face as a character who has to swallow others in order to have a voice and is animated only by the urge to consume. Or the Spirit God as a sacrifice of consumer capitalism, sullied by toxic effusions of modern life. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2010, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-miyazaki-film/551183/28 "2010-08-24T04:41:47Z")
So, Ishtaw, what did you vote for? ---
**Author:** ![GargoyleWB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gargoylewb/32/199_2.png) [@GargoyleWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GargoyleWB)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2010, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-miyazaki-film/551183/29 "2010-08-24T05:32:26Z")
> [@Kilmore](#): > > I don’t know about the movie, but the Nausicaa comic is tremendously epic and fantastic. Agreed, one of the finest comic series I’ve read. I read issue #1 in a used book store a few months ago and it hooked me cover to cover, and immediately Amazonned the whole series. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2010, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-miyazaki-film/551183/30 "2010-08-24T16:05:23Z")
I’ve seen all but “Castle in the Sky” and “Cagliostro.” I voted for “Spirited Away” because it has a good story and some compelling imagery … the spooks, the train gliding over the water, etc. But I liked “Whispers of the Heart” better, a more compelling story and also some great visuals, but it is Studio Ghibli and not Miyazaki. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2010, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-miyazaki-film/551183/31 "2010-08-24T18:02:07Z")
> [@Arnold\_Winkelried](#): > > Of the ones I’ve seen, which are > My Neighbor Totoro, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle and Ponyo, I picked Princess Mononoke. Probably because I think it has the most “current” theme - the balance between development and respecting the environment. That theme is big in _Spirited Away_ too. ---
**Author:** ![Apollyon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/apollyon/32/4238_2.png) [@Apollyon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apollyon)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2010, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-miyazaki-film/551183/32 "2010-08-24T23:51:24Z")
> [@Giles](#): > > I’ve seen all except Castle of Cagliostro, and all of those multiple times except for Ponyo (which I first saw yesterday). Ditto – well, saw Ponyo a few weeks ago, but otherwise ditto. (Have all but Castle of Cagliostro and Ponyo on DVD and they’ve all got a fair bit of play). Voted _Totoro_… but it’s a close thing with _Princess Mononoke_, _Spirited Away_, and _Howl’s Moving Castle_. My favourite of the Ghibli’s I have though is _Whisper of the Heart_ – for which Miyazaki wrote the screenplay but didn’t direct; it being the one and only film directed by Yoshifumi Kondō. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2010, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-miyazaki-film/551183/33 "2010-08-25T00:04:57Z")
I hate to interrupt my own thread, but folks, you should really check out Satoshi Kon, Japan’s 2nd greatest animator. [He just died a few hours ago and was amazing. I posted a thread already about it. Very sad.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0spB4OObrw) ---
**Author:** ![lshaw](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e36b37/32.png) [@lshaw](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lshaw)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2010, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-miyazaki-film/551183/34 "2010-08-25T07:37:42Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > So, Ishtaw, what did you vote for? _Spirited Away_ It was a tough call. I’m a big fan of most of Miyazaki’s work. They are all visual masterpieces, that goes without saying. ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2010, 7:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-miyazaki-film/551183/35 "2010-08-25T07:55:47Z")
I’m always surprised at how little love _Howl’s_ gets. It blew me away. #1. Spirited #2. Howl’s #3. Cagliostro #4. Mononoke #5. Castle in the Sky Haven’t seen Porco, Totoro, or Kiki’s yet. Didn’t really like Nausicaa or Ponyo. ---
**Author:** ![Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8edcca/32.png) [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superfluous_Parentheses)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2010, 8:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-miyazaki-film/551183/36 "2010-08-25T08:54:13Z")
I had a hard time choosing between Totoro and Spirited Away. In the end I picked S.A. since I found the story more compelling and because I think it had a few more really memorable scenes. Didn’t like Porco Rosso, or Kiki for some reason. Haven’t seen Castle of Cagliostro. The others are somewhere between “good/interesting” and “very good”. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2010, 9:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-miyazaki-film/551183/37 "2010-08-25T09:52:07Z")
Spirited Away, followed by HMC. There is much that I love about Totoro but at heart it’s a very lightweight film. The others - good, but didn’t really speak to me as much. [Confession: I haven’t seen Princess Mononoke yet. Horror!] As for other Ghibli productions Pom Poko depressed the hell out of me and my wife really likes The Cat Returns for some reason. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2010, 10:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-miyazaki-film/551183/38 "2010-08-25T10:01:13Z")
> [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](#): > > Didn’t like […] Kiki for some reason. It wasn’t the annoying voice on the cat, was it? ---
**Author:** ![Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8edcca/32.png) [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superfluous_Parentheses)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2010, 10:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-miyazaki-film/551183/39 "2010-08-25T10:04:44Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > > [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](#): > > > > Didn’t like […] Kiki for some reason. > > It wasn’t the annoying voice on the cat, was it? I think part of it was that I saw a dubbed version. Japanese animation with American voices doesn’t work for me at all. I much prefer subtitles. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2010, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-miyazaki-film/551183/40 "2010-08-25T13:00:15Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > > [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](#): > > > > Didn’t like […] Kiki for some reason. > > It wasn’t the annoying voice on the cat, was it? Phil Hartman? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-miyazaki-film/551183.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-miyazaki-film/551183.md?page=3)