I just saw two more of Miyazaki’s movies, Kiki’s Delivery Service and Howl’s Moving Castle, and while not as great as Mononoke, they were still excellent. Kiki’s was remarkably conflict-light and probably geared towards younger kids, but I still found it utterly charming and human, not to mention entertaining. Moving Castle was a masterful achievement in setting and environment, but was slightly marred by the plot falling apart towards the end; still completely enthralling, though. Spirited Away was a masterpiece, plain and simple. And Princess Mononoke must rank among the best films ever made.
Excluding Disney, is there anyone else that makes films like these? I’m looking for soaring imagination, humanity, and the guts to go a little out there. Perhaps there are some lesser known Japanese animators that make films with less mass appeal (maybe too daring or racy or whatever), but are comparable in quality?
(and yes, I will be watching the rest of Miyazaki’s movies in short order :))
An animated adaptation of the Richard Adams novel. Top-quality animation and a serious (often disturbing) plot.
You can see the whole movie in segments on Youtube but I’d recommend actually getting the video because you’re missing a lot of resolution with the Youtube clips.
There’s no-one like Miyazaki. Some Pixar stuff tries to come close, I guess - Brad Bird’s Iron Giant too. But still too kiddy. Aardman stuff, for me, has some of the whimsy and inventiveness that’s classic Miyazaki. Tim Burton’s stuff too. Some internet shorts I’ve seen also have it - there was one about this kid going to the moon, set to some french indie band - wish I could remember the name.
Don’t forget to watch Laputa and Nausicaä too, both excellent. Do not watch the “Warriors of the Wind” Nausicaä dub if you can avoid it
Otherwise, I’m sure there’s a treasure trove of untranslated Japanese stuff in the wake of Studio Ghibli’s success, but we’ll never know, will we.
I know. I first saw it when I was 9 - it gave me some pretty profound shock. Still the animation in it is absolutely breathtaking to look at - the “fells” and woods of England’s Lake District just come alive with color and vibrance. You can see each blade of grass painstakingly hand-drawn.
Here’s a great scene from it. (Warning - violence.) Look at the beauty of that flowing water in the brook behind the dog, and the shading and moss on the rocks. Plague Dogs is my number one animated movie of all time, with All Dogs Go To Heaven by Don Bluth a very close second and American Pop in third place.
I’m not into the Japanese fantasy stuff at all. It doesn’t resonate with me whatsoever. But if there was a studio consistently putting out stuff at the level of Plague Dogs, I’d be in heaven.
You bring up The Plague Dogs but not his earlier (and much more upbeat) Richard Adams adaptation, Watership Down? Rent THAT film, instead.
(They made a reference to it in wallace and Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, when the van radio starts playing the Art Garfunkel song “Bright Eyes” that was written for WD)
Once you’ve seen all of Miyazaki’s films (don’t miss “Castle in the Sky” and “Porco Rosso”) I recommend “Whisper of the Heart” and it’s spin-off “The Cat Returns” and “Only Yesterday”. These have more heart and humanity than all of Pixar’s output.
Miyazaki is a visionary genius, in a class all by himself, but there are other wonderful anime films out there. First, you should check out other non-Miyazaki Studio Ghibli films like “Grave of the Fireflies”, an emotionally devastating WWII film. One of the greatest war movies ever made. Seriously. Much less traumatic is “Only Yesterday”, a gentle, whimsical story about a young city woman learning to love life in the country.
The other big name anime director I highly recommend is Satoshi Kon. Whereas Miyazaki makes mythic and surreal childlike fantasies, Kon swims in darker psychological water with flawed, often paranoid, characters playing out dramas that can be subject to many different interpretations. You can’t always trust what you’re being shown as he often plays with audience expectations and meta-narrative.
See “Perfect Blue” for a disturbing, Hitchcockian thriller with dashes of De Palma-like exploitation, “Millennium Actress” a trippy and disorienting story about a documentary crew filming the reminiscences of a famous actress and “Tokyo Godfathers”, probably his most conventional film, is a Christmas fable about a group of homeless people who find an abandoned baby and their attempts to find its parents.
I want to second this. IMNSHO, “Whisper of the Heart” is the best of Miyazaki’s works. Though you may want to find a primer somewhere about Japanese cultural norms before viewing it. A lot of the powerful scenes won’t make sense until you know what the cultural norms are.
The Triplets of Belleville. Much different style, but the same sort of dark and funny imagination, with no condescending for the kiddies (there’s even a bit of nudity).
Maybe, if you want a bunch of hoopty-poopty mystical mumbo-jumbo. Plague Dogs is darker but it’s also more moving of a story, in my opinion. Of course, why not just rent both of them? You shouldn’t miss out on Plague Dogs just because it’s darker.
I was a fanboy for Royal Space Force: Wings of Honneamise. Not sure of its current availability on home video (got mine on LD). Nothing holds a candle to Miyazaki’s best (Kiki’s Delivery Service is probably my favorite animated film of all time), but there’s a lot of good stuff out there.
Well, that depends how you want to define “Miyazaki film.” He did write the screenplay, and was listed as the General Producer for the film. He wasn’t the director, but I don’t think you can claim he wasn’t involved with the making of the film.
I think a “Miyazaki film” would be defined as a film directed by Hayao Miyazaki. You can look here to see which Studio Ghibli films are his and which ones he was involved in but was not the director of.