There’s something similar in the manga series Inu-yasha. I don’t know if that’s what you’re thinking of. Actually, I don’t even know what gaki-like means.
Gaki, IIRC, are “hungry ghosts” in Japanese folklore. Different kinds hunger for different things–some are satisfied with incense, while others want flesh, and still others want blood (kind of the Japanese analog to vampires).
I think you’re right about the Inu Yasha episode. If I’m remembering it correctly, the creature in it strongly resembled the creature in Spirited Away. It was definitely a flesh eater, hungry for a living form. Does anyone know of any other instances of these creatures turning up? Do they have a common basis in folklore?
Wait, wait. Miyazaki directed Castle of Cagliostro and the LupinIII series? Holy sh–, did he do anything wrong?
Not the whole series. Castle of Cagliostro is the only Lupin III movie directed by Miyazaki. I believe he did a couple of the TV show episodes as well, but I’m not sure which ones.
Nausicaa is my favourite Miyazaki movie too. The climactic scene makes me cry every time I watch it.
Well, I’ve heard a lot of people say Pom Poko wasn’t that great, but then I’ve heard others say just the opposite. I haven’t seen it yet, but it sounds like it’s probably one of the least likely to make the transition to America: a tribe of magical badgers whose sources of power are their enormous testicles.
What impresses me most with Miyazaki’s work is the power he can put into his images, whether moving or still. The scene in Spirited Away when the dragon and the paper creatures suddenly fly up in front of Sen on the balcony, the first appearance of Om at the beginning of Nausicaa, the tree-growing ritual in Totoro, the flying scenes from Laputa, they make you feel as though the screen were twice its size.
A Studio Ghibili park opened up recently in Japan, and although I’d really like to go, I worry that the Ghibili movies just bring up too many powerful emotions in me for it to be that much fun. The mascot character on all the posters is one of the dead robots from Laputa, for Og’s sake. I can’t help but imagine a trail of ashen-faced souls staggering out of the Grave of the Fireflies Fun House.
FYI: Pom Poko was directed by Takahata Isao, Miyazaki’s partner at Studio Ghibli. In my humble opinion, it’s a good film. However, it’s also very much based in Japanese culture and folklore, which can make it hard to understand. According to legend, the tanuki, a raccoon-like animal native to Japan, have many mystical powers, including the ability to shapeshift. And, of course, the males use their testicles as weapons…well, it’s kind of hard to explain.
In any case, the tanuki are faced with the loss of their environment when construction of a new suburb of Tokyo comes to their mountain. They try to do everything they can to preserve their home…
Also, I’ve seen a LOT of promotional material for the Ghibli museum…I don’t get the same vibe from them that you do, I guess. The big Nekobasu alone is enough to make me want to visit!
Duh? The episode featuring the robot from Laputa! 
… and do you also cheer every time the Valley’s gunship shoots down the Torumekian Corvette?
I fell in love with this movie about 15 years ago when I saw it as Warriors of the Wind on HBO. While I actually own a copy of it, I have loaned it to my cousin to share with her children and I fear it shall never return.
Sure, it was neutered… they changed most of the names (they never even mention the name of Kushana’s henchman, Kurotowa), but they managed to cut out a lot of the preachy parts (Miyazaki, for all his talent, is a rabid environmentalist - see my spoiler from Spirited Away, above) and some of the translation is remarkably appropriate; for example, I always laugh…
[spoiler]…l when the Torumekian commander orders his men to kill Lord Yupa during the fight scene on board the transport from Pejitei. “That’s Lord Yupa! Kill him and you’ll be famous!”
In the original manga, the attackers are not Torumekians at all, but the mercenary Worm Handlers; their head man balks at the idea of attacking such a legendary fighter as Yupa (“he’s the most skilled swordsman in the periphery!”) until the Torumekian commander raises the bonus they will be paid for defeating him.
Yupa still manages to defeat them all![/spoiler]
Still, Castle of Cagliostro is the best animated film ever made. Is it Miyazaki’s touch? Who’s to say…
No he didn’t.
Pom Poko is not only not his but it is also great.
I thought Spirited was great. Saw it twice in the States and would see it again ifn I hadn’t moved back to Brazil. I think it is only inferior to Totoro and tied with other Ghibli movies. But I find Totoro to be one of the greatest movies ever made.
Nausicaa was great but what’s up with the awful soundtrack?
“Well, I’ve heard a lot of people say Pom Poko wasn’t that great, but then I’ve heard others say just the opposite”
Pom Poko was directed by Isao Takahata not Miyazaki. Takahata also directed Grave of the Fireflies ,a masterpiece, nd the less well-known but excellent Only Yesterday. In some ways he is a greater director than Miyazaki.
I’m so glad that Disney re-released this one; it’s worth seeing on the big screen. It’s one of the best kids’ movies I’ve seen. It really captures a fairy-tale feel: wierd things happen, and they’re not completely explained; the heroine triumphs not because she’s the strongest or the smartest, but because she’s kind to others.
The giant chicks (birds, not babes) in the bath house really freaked me out. I’ve been decorating for Easter, and seeing the scary big chicks didn’t help.
I thought the giant chicks wearing leaves for their hats were cute.
Ok, ok, I get it! Miyazaki didn’t make Pom Poko! Geez, you guys are as picky as a buncha anime freaks.
Even if it had been him, though, Miyazaki on a bad day is still pretty damn good.
Miyazaki is still credited as a producer (or some similar title) for Pom Poko. I don’t know if that was just for publicity or if he had much influence on the work. This movie is even more preachy than other Miyazaki films, IMHO, but still entertaining.
I actually live 4 miles away from the Ghibli park/museum and I still haven’t gone there. You need a reservation to get in, and weekend tickets still sell out quickly. It doesn’t seem worth the trouble to me.
I just saw the Spirited Away DVD, I thought it was incredible. To me it was a comparable story to the Wizard of Oz or Alice Through the Looking Glass, only with more of an emphasis on character development and, like DanielWithrow said, with no clearly defined bad guy. My question though is how did Chihiro know that what the river god gave her was medicine? She just instantly assumed that it could cure Haku and forces it down his throat. It could have been something good for humans and poisonous to spirits.
“Miyazaki is still credited as a producer (or some similar title) for Pom Poko. I don’t know if that was just for publicity or if he had much influence on the work”
Miyazaki did produce Pom Poko but producers generally deal with the practical side of the production rather than the creative, so it is considered a Takahata film.
BTW I purchased the DVD and saw the subtitled version for the first time. I though the dub was decent but the sub is quite a bit better. In particular the problems with the last 15 minutes which I mentioned above are largely a problem with the dub. Those of you who have only seen the dub should buy or rent the DVD and watch the sub. There is a great making-of documentary on the second disk as well.
I’m not overly impressed with the DVD transfer. It could be my TV, but I thought the colors are washed out compared to the big screen (which I just saw a week before I bought the DVD). At least we don’t have the dreaded red tint like the Japanese release did.
It’s been several months since I saw the movie on the big screen but I didn’t notice any big difference in the DVD. I thought both of them had a “washed out” look comapred to other Ghibli films but I think this was a deliberate artistic decision.
BTW I have started another thread about the DVD in case anyone is interested.
Put me in the minority of those who found Spirited Away to be an incomprehesible drag. Characters came and went without furthering the storyline and by the time the boy reveals his true nature, I was wayyyyy past caring. My son (age 10) and I liked “Totoro” a couple of years back, but this seemed to be a bit more disjointed.
And as long as the comparison to “Treasure Planet” was introduced in the OP, let me say that I would gladly see that again and found the animation to be superb. The cyborg Long John Silver alone was brilliantly executed and animated and the movement of all the characters I found to be much more fluid and interesting than those in Spirited Away.
I know I’m risking the wrath of the SA devotees, but it was time for some healthy rebuttal.
davesink: Your opinion is noted. Can’t say you’ve rebutted anything, but not everyone has to like the same stuff.
I was impressed by Spirited Away. Saw it in the theater, subtitled. Saw it in the theater, dubbed. Bought the DVD. Bought the “The Art of …” book.
A few things – I thought the storyline was…a little disjointed, I guess. Or something. It’s not bad, but it’s not as compelling as, say, Totoro. I very much consider it an “Alice in Wonderland” story. I’m liking it better each time I see it, but I there are parts where I wonder why Sen does what she does, and why that makes her deserving of escape. I don’t like stories that go “A problem arises…a lot of random stuff happens…and then the problem goes away.” I prefer the hero’s actions to directly lead to the outcome. Still, her decisions are largely based on compassion, and that’s a good enough reason, I suppose. The subtitled version makes this more clear, imho.
For whatever reason, “No Face” is “No Face” rather than “Noh Face.” I don’t speak japanese, so I couldn’t say what the original intent was. But the “Art of Spirited Away” translates it as “No Face”.
What was the deal with him? Here’s my opinion: I consider him something of an embodiment of longing, or loneliness. When he’s first seen, on the bridge, he’s on the side, near but not with the rest of the spirits. Sen is nice to him (she lets him in) and he makes an effort to be nice to her. But he can’t quite figure out how. He gets her a soak token, which she appreciates. He then gets her a pile of soak tokens, which she doesn’t want. He sees that people want gold, so he offers gold, but realizes that they don’t care about him, all they want is the gold. And Sen doesn’t even want that. He’s trying to return her kindness, trying to gain her acceptance, but nothing seems to work. Finally, he’s accepted by Zeniba (away from the corrupting influences of greed and selfishness at the bathhouse) for something he does. I don’t imagine he’s great at sewing, but he’s good enough, and it allows him to contrubute, be appreciated, and to finally belong. Honestly, given the way my teen years went, I really identified with him.
The kashira, as far as I know, were just random weirdness. Doesn’t really bother me. What bugs me is the Yu-bird looking like Yubaba, and Zeniba looking exactly like Yubaba. I understand why, and that makes me like it even less:
Originally, the Yu-bird was going to be Yubaba, and the human-like body of Yubaba be presumably something of a decoy that the Yu-bird circled. That idea was abandoned, but the Yu-bird kept its Yubaba-like appearance.
And Zeniba was originally going to look kind of like Yubaba, but taller and thinner, so they’d look like sisters, rather than the carbon-copy duplicates they ended up with. Unfortunately, they ran short of time during key animation, so they made them the same for simplicity’s sake.
I liked Spirited Away much more than Mononoke, but this past Friday some friends invited me to see Laputa (retitled “Castle in the Sky” by Disney due to a rather unfortunate similarity between the name and a rude epithet in Spanish) at the Egyptian in Hollywood (dubbed). I found it to be much more enjoyable than SA, though not as artsy. It was a tremendously fun movie, made even more so by an hysterically funny dub. Probably the funniest movie I’ve seen in a year. (The pirate family is priceless.)
I’ll probably see it subtitled at some point, but I’m not really fond of those who insist that a dubbed version is in some way inferior. It’s purely a matter of preference.
I’ve also seen Caligostro and thought it was pretty fun as well.
I only know of one horrendously bad dub that I’ve seen and that was the original English dub of Akira. Thankfully, the reissue that they put out recently has a much better and better voiced dub.