WTF is Howl’s doing that high up? I reject this list wholesale.
Also, Porco Rosso has no business being last. Behind Tales from Earthsea FFS? Nonsense I say. Pistols at dawn.
Because it’s a beutifully animated meditation on the futility of war, graceful aging, feminism, and the value of compassion?
They can be pretty fast and loose with the English dubs (though to be fair some of that is being constrained into trying to match mouth movements.) With the coming Netflix release I’ve had the movies on my mind and have been working on transcoding versions of all 22 movies into HD–all except one (Ocean Waves) have Japanese and English audio and two of them (Laputa and Kiki) have two English audios. I’ve been sampling around a lot in the audio comparing the English to the subs (sadly, I can’t actually understand most of the Japanese audio.) I wouldn’t necessarily say that the differences are bad, but they do subtly or not subtly change the tone of things. For instance, in Ponyo, there is a scene where the subs give the line “I wonder if she could fix our legs.” The dub says “Maybe she could use more magic to fix my hips and thighs.” Okay, not too different. But for the next line from another character, the subs say “We could run around like you.” while the dub says “I’d let a fish lick me if it could get me out of this wheelchair.”
Another one I noticed in Laputia–at 1:12:02 (in my version) a character walks in carrying a flower. In the subs, he says “I’ve got some free time. Can I…” In the Tokuma Shoten English dub, he says “May I be of assistance?” Okay that’s not so bad. But in the Disney dub, he says “I’m in love with you!”…
I’m thinking of making it a project to watch all the movies in the original Japanese, then go back and watch them again in English (which I’ve never done before.)
Welcome to the world of translating art. It’s more than just looking up words in a dictionary.
My ranking(subject to change) of the 20 I have seen.
- Spirited Away (2001)
- Grave of the Fireflies (1988)
- My Neighbour Totoro (1988)
- Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989)
- Arrietty (2010)
- Howl’s Moving Castle (2004)
- Princess Mononoke (1997)
- Laputa: Castle in the Sky (1986)
- Ponyo (2008)
- The Cat Returns (2002)
- When Marnie Was There (2014)
- Whisper of the Heart (1995)
- Tales from Earthsea (2006)
- Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (1984)
- Only Yesterday (1991)
- Porco Rosso (1992)
- The Wind Rises (2013)
- From Up on Poppy Hill (2011)
- Pom Poko (1994)
- My Neighbours the Yamadas (1999)
Tales of Earthsea for example. That’s the problem with this list, you’ve got great films and then some other stuff that doesn’t come close. Some will move people to tears and others will make them bored to death. But the stuff from Miyazaki is all amazing and it didn’t begin with Studio Ghibli.
It’s funny when a character becomes so much more voluble when they are facing away from the camera or their mouth is hidden. “Quick, get the expository dialog!” If they have a big bushy mustache, all bets are off.
I usually watch my anime subbed, so I don’t worry too much about the quality of the dub. My first exposure to Ghibli/Miyazaki was seeing Warriors of the Wind, the horribly dubbed and chopped version of Nausicaa, on HBO as a kid. The Disney and G-Kids dubs are are hella good compared to that and other anime dubs of that era.
I don’t do a full ranking, as I haven’t seen some of these films in a while, but I hold Spirited Away to be Miyazaki’s best work, followed closely by Princess Mononoke. I consider both of these to be the best expressions of themes he had been developing since Nausicaa, or even before.
On a slightly lower tier, I would place in no particular order: Totoro, Kiki’s Delivery Service, Laputa, and Howl’s Moving Castle. On the next tier, I would place Nausicaa, Ponyo, and Ponpoko (WAY too low on the Guardian list).
The wildcard for me is The Tale of the Princess Kaguya. It doesn’t look or feel like a Ghibli film, so a lot of people skip it. I consider it Takahata’s absolute masterpiece, and it never fails to make me weep (but in a good way, not in the gut-punching misery way of Grave of the Fireflies). Depending on how I’m feeling, I could absolutely put it my top 5.
On the rest, I would say The Wind Rises is too high, Whisper of the Heart is too high, Tales from Earthsea is way too high, and Porco Rosso is too low. Of the Ghibli movies not by Miyazaki or Takahata, I would rank When Marnie Was There or maybe The Cat Returns highest.
I have a soft spot for Up On Poppy Hill, which is usually among the lowest-ranked on many lists, not because it’s a great film (it has a muddled ending), but because not really encapsulates what life in Japan was like at that time.
The Night Parade scene in Pom Poko is one of the most beautiful and amazing sequences of animation that I’ve seen anywhere, ever. (And it is even better when you know enough about Japanese folklore/art to recognize the tons of references.)
Quick tangential issue. There is a music video that I kept from some Japanese TV show 10 to 15 years ago. I believe that it involved Ghibli artists (nut wasn’t an official Ghibli project) but I can’t remember the name of it. Google Image search from screen shots isn’t helping. SMDB Image Search should work, though.
Seems like you’ll need someone who reads Japanese, not an image expert…
I assume you don’t mean “On Your Mark” but I don’t know anything else that’s similar. They have hired out but I think that’s all inbetweeners.
No, this is something completely different. I managed to find it, though–the first two screencaps that I ran through Google didn’t return anything productive (the screencap with the tree and text just told me that it was a ginkgo, another one told me “box girder bridge”) but I just tried again with a third part of the video and got the answer–Kaze no Toori Michi (but not the Kaze no Toori Michi from Totoro.) Here is the video on Youtube. I was hoping to find a better version on-line but it looks like the one I have is better than all the web versions that I’m finding.
I kind of wonder what people’s Ghibli film rankings would be minus the films directed by Miyazaki?
I think I would go…
- The Tale of the Princess Kaguya
- Pom Poko
- Grave of the Fireflies (Which I don’t think I can watch again.)
4). When Marnie Was There - The Cat Returns
Assuming you mean only Hayao Miyazaki -
[ol]
[li]Only Yesterday[/li][li]Whisper of the Heart[/li][li]Pom Poko[/li][li]Grave of the Fireflies[/li][li]From Up On Poppy Hill[/li][/ol]
with the caveat that I haven’t seen The Tale of the Princess Kaguya yet and I hear that’s quite good.
IMHO, Princess Kaguya is Takahata’s masterpiece.
I always think of Whisper of the Heart as a Miyazaki movie, but since he only wrote it, and I specified director my post…
I would place Whisper of the Heart at 5 on my list. I give it a bit of a ding because I greatly dislike the ubiquitous Japanese version of “Country Roads”.
I like the Japanese version of Country Road and the other Japanese version of Country Road.
My favorites (I did not rank this list)
Totoro: Almost nothing negative to say about this one. Good feelings and mystery all around. The drama is intense at time, but “nothing bad happens.” As childhood should be.
Spirited Away: Wow, what a pageant, such color, music, over-the-top characters and atmosphere. The most solid part of the movie is of course the young heroine, Sen, who grows up a lot.
The Wind Rises: A very rare movie visualizing the beauty of engineering. The story isn’t bad, but it is a little awkward at times. The burning political questions are simply sidestepped or ignored.
Kiki’s Delivery Service: I saw this a couple of times. Nice story, set in a sort of steampunk retro-present Europe where witches exist and can do magic in a serviceable sort of way.
Cat Returns: My son’s favorite, hands down. Kind of fun for me, but the tone of the work doesn’t appeal to me so much. Bonus points for the hilarious typo “Crossload” on a cafe sign (s/b “Crossroad”).
Mononoke: Hey, an actual anime for grown-ups. Adult themes abound, particularly man vs. man, man vs. nature, honor, etc. Possibly the most disturbing to watch–very intense at times.
Grave of the Fireflies: Even more disturbing. After daddy’s cruiser is sunk by the US Navy (happened before the drama begins) and mom dies of burns after their house is destroyed by incindiary bombs dropped onto their roof by a B-29 (memorable opening sequence), two young kids have to move in with their intolerable aunt. The prideful boy soon moves them out onto the streets, where they suffer the pains of homelessness and worse.
Ponyo: We’re back to bright colors and breathtaking animation sequences. A favored first daughter & princess of the sea wills herself to be a human girl to be together with the boy she fell in love with. At the same time, this movie is all about the power of nature and how humans so often seem to be trying to destroy it (see Mononoke). But this movie is entirely through childrens’ eyes; nothing “bad” happens. Even the flooded village scene is pretty and calming, with boats filled with village people gathering up into colorful flotillas and helping each other out. (Note, just after this movie came out came the actual floods in northern Japan thanks to the Fukushima earthquake and tsunami. No doubt if those floods happened earlier, Ponyo might not have been released.)
Howl’s Moving Castle: Cool movie, cool story, but didn’t stick with me the same way as the others did. I did enjoy “Calcifer” the heat demon (similar to Lucifer, the bringer of light).
Nausicaa: Saw it once, liked it, sort of reminded me of Mononoke but less intense.
Porco Rosso: I like this one. Not sure why it was made or how it works, but it does…start with a bunch of Miyazaki’s favorite things (airplanes, especially Italian ones), the sea, fantasy relationships, a fantasy version of Europe, then throw in some funny and over-the-top characters, and blend them all up.
Have you seen Whisper of the Heart? They are connected.
Those of you who like Whisper of the Heart may enjoy this video which compares locations in the film to the actual locations which inspired them. For me it illustrates the power of drawing to transform what are fairly humdrum urban locations. (In general I think the real world and photography have too much detail which the skillful artist can cut and leave only what is visually pleasing). As a bonus you have music from the film; I particularly like the music around the 5-6 minute mark in the scenes where the girl is chasing the cat.