I saw an anime when I was really, really young (8 maybe) and I absolutly loved it. I would like to re-watch it but I have no clue what its called. I do belive it was shown on Nickelodeon, before they decided that the youth of America are hopless morons and got rid of all the cool shows like Dr. Who, etc.
Anyway, what I remember is that it is set in a futuristic world. The air is unbreathable and everyone has to wear masks to breath. The main character is a female that is some type of messiah. She has a little weird bat looking creature as a pet/sidekick. There are these weird huge worm-like creatures with golden tongues.
Thats all I remember, It may have been a pilot for a series, but who knows.
Check out Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. Breathing masks, female character, slightly messiantic. I can’t remember if she had a little bat thing, but I am pretty sure that there were worm things with golden tongues.
It’s definitely Nausicaa. She does indeed have a little bat-like pet.
Incidentally you may have seen the dubbed and edited version: Warriors of the Wind which is widely regarded as a butchery. Make sure you get the original version if possible. Unfortunately it’s not been released on video in the US AFAIK so I suppose you may have to do with the dub. Incidentally the manga ,which is highly regarded ,is available in the US though I haven’t read it myself.
And no, it’s not obscure at all. It’s one of the early works of the most famous anime director Hayao Miyazaki.
IIRC it’s long out of print since Streamline had the rights to it and they folded as part of Orion Pictures years ago. Anchor Bay had the rights or was looking to acquire the rights to the “Warriors of the Wind” dub but if they have it they haven’t released it. Disney has the rights to do another dub but they’ve been moving awfully slow on releasing Miyazaki’s films so don’t look for it from them for a while.
Hey, give a teeny eeny bit of credit - Disney has released reservation dates for Kiki’s Delivery Service, Spirited Away, and Laputa in April. Go to Suncoast and reserve your copy. Totoro is widely believed to be coming out the same day. All on dual language DVD.
Okay, but just a teeny eeny. I mean they’ve been sitting on a completed Laputa for years now (wasn’t it 1999 when they showed the print once at the Toronto Film Festival?), Kiki’s got a VHS release when Disney thought that it wasn’t worth putting movies on DVD (and was the last video cassette I’ve purchased), and Spiritted Away was done as the video release following the theatrical release. When Disney starts releasing the Ghibli films at a rate of one every six months, then I’ll give them full credit.
“Totoro is widely believed to be coming out the same day.”
This is news to me. Any source for this? Why would they not announce its release like the others?
This strikes me as odd, too. Especially given that Fox Family just released their version at the beginning of December 2002. However, as you’ll find on Amazon, it has been kind of pannednot because the movie is bad (far from it) but because this is a DVD reissue of an old pan&scan VHS edition with bad sound. So we’re ripe for a ‘definitive’ edition.
I’ll be totally thrilled if this rumor turns out to be true…but for something to be ‘widely believed’ and yet not get even a cursory mention on Nausicäa.net makes me suspicious. Where’d you get this, Zsofia?
Fox Family released their version then because that’s when their rights gave out. I’m trying to find where I heard that Disney was putting it out the same day as the others, and I can’t find anything in print. Hmm. People have been coming in and asking about it, though, saying they heard it was coming out in April… and I seem to have heard it was coming out in April… will do some more research, because I’m sure I’ve read it from “reputable” sources.
And yes, Disney’s Miyazaki track record has been pathetically hideous. But don’t tell me you aren’t going to go out and buy them when they come out on DVD, assuming they are dual language? It’s late in coming, but quite appreciated. If they do a really bang-up job on them, I may reconsider a few of the nasty things I’ve said about them.
“You guys have any other anime recomendations for me?”
If you liked Nausicaa try Princess Mononoke by the same director which is similiar in theme. It’s available in VHS and DVD in the US and the dub is quite decent (but still try to get the subbed version on DVD).
For anime in more modern settings try out Jin-Roh, Ghost in the Shell and Metropolis, all of them available on DVD in the US.
Zsophia,
If you do find anything about a Totoro release please let us know in this thread.
Other recommendations: yes, Ghost in the Shell is great fun. If you have a thing for giant, horizon-striding robots, then consider Neon Genesis Evangelion, which is really cool and features gigantic robots fighting huge mysterious aliens! And then at the end it spends two episodes discussing heavy existentialist theory and stuff! Which is also fun, albeit startling and intellectually challenging. When Spirited Away comes out in April, by all means see it, if you missed it in the theatersit’s Miyazaki’s most recent lovely turn. And if you’re into gritty SF space crime drama thingies, perhaps Cowboy Bebop?
I’ll admit that none of the above are obscure, so maybe you’ve seen them all already. But there it is.
Of course, but I’m still going to complain about the fact that it’s taken them five years to get to this point. My complaint isn’t with the quality of the product but with how they’re handling it, after all.
I thought that was because they started to run out of money, and it’s faster to animate scenes where everyone is standing still and talking than it is to animate an action scene.
Kind of like how the reason we never really saw the shark in Jaws until the very end was because they didn’t finish the mechanical shark until the end of the shoot, not because of Spielberg’s great directorial vision or anything
(I admit, I was disappointed by the end of NGE. Of course, even if the above anectode is true then why didn’t I like NGE:The Motion Picture either, when presumably that was closer to what was originally intended? Hmm…)
Yeah I didn’t much like either the last two episodes of Evangelion or the movie. The movie ending was even weirder than the series ending. The rest of the series was great though.
BTW concerning recommendations I forgot to mention Grave of the Fireflies also available on DVD. I heard that the dub is pretty bad so make sure you see the sub.
Also there are several anime recommendations threads on the boards. Just run a title search for “anime” and you should be able to find them.
I tell people who have a problem with the last two episodes of Eva to think of 24 as the ending. You’ve got the conclusion of the angels arc right there. 25 and 26 are more about bringing the character arcs to a close. The movie was okay but nothing special.
And yes they were done because they were out of money, but it’s like the ending to Gunbuster in that it was interesting. (Picture an Lensman scale battle at the galactic core between billions of aliens and the heroes who are trying to shove the planet Jupiter down into a singularity… Got it? Now do it all in twenty minutes of black and white stills before switching to color for the emotional last thirty seconds.)
Well, a friend let me borrow his copy of Nausicaa. The only problem is that its an import and is not in english (although it is subtitled in some other language).
