My Neighbor, Totoro

[Seneca]

I just saw this film for the first time today - although it was initially released over 20 years ago.

It's nice to see a beautiful, well-made, and moving film both adults and kids can enjoy, yet steps outside of the usual Pixar/Disney fare. Nothing against those - but it's nice to have alternatives.

I am going to have to explore more of the works of Hayao Miyazaki.

[grace0418]

1. I love that move. Absolutely love it!

I'm glad you enjoyed!

[Starbucks Anarchist]

2. Watch "Spirited Away" and "Howl's Moving Castle" next.

[Tikki]

10. Sometimes I daydream what Howl's Moving Castle would...

be like out of animation and with CGI...But, NO!!!


Tikki

[jobycom]

3. We're living in the greatest age of animation, if you ask me.

Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli are one half of it, and Pixar is the other. Watch every Miyazaki film you can, anything he has had a hand in. You won't be disappointed. Even his early, rougher animation, like Lupin the Third or "Whisper of the Heart" (I think he only wrote that) has the same sensitive, respectful touch. He never treats characters as idiots or tools, but creates three dimensional, complex beings and sucks you into their lives. Unlike a lot of animation and "family" or "kid" films, he doesn't get cheap laughs through idiotic and unbelievable behavior, nor through trendy pop-culture references, but he earns them through a story and characters respectfully created.

Love the man. Love his work. He's one of my favorite directors--animated or otherwise.

If you loved Totoro, you have to watch Kiki's Delivery Service. Watch them all, but that one is similar. My favorite is Spirited Away, but Porco Rosso is surpisingly good. Then there's Nausicaa of the Valley of the Winds, or Princess Mononoke...

Enjoy!!! And don't bother renting them, you'll just buy them all anyway, because you'll want to see them again. :)

[Seneca]

11. The friend who introduced me to him

Runs a summer film festival at his house every year, and has a theme each year. Because his daughter and some of his friends' kids are now preschool age, he picked kids' movies this year, a mixture of classics (Disney fare such as 'Mary Poppins', 'Lady and the Tramp', etc) and a couple of Miyazaki films, including 'Kiki's Delivery Service' and the subject of the OP. For most of us in attendance for the Memorial Day BBQ and inaugural film, this was our first time seeing 'Totoro'.

Sensitive and respectful are two perfect words to describe his approach. It was an unexpected wallop when you felt the two girls' very real fear of losing their mother.

He conveys a true love of nature, and a genuine sense of community in the setting. It was a welcome development that the parents ENCOURAGED their childrens' imaginations, rather than belittle them, like one would expect in a contemporary Disney or Pixar film.

My friend recommends any of his work, but focused on:

* Princess Mononoke
* Castle in the Sky (a.k.a. Laputa: Castle in the Sky)
* Kiki's Delivery Service
* Porco Rosso
* Spirited Away
* Castle of Cagliostro

[jobycom]

12. I think some of that is the difference in literary culture.

I'm far from an expert on Japanese lit, but the stories I've read and the movies I've seen rarely seek out conflict just for conflict's sake, and that's exactly what American/English writers are told to do. That's one reason Miyazaki's (and Kurosawa's, and the handful of others I've seen) often seem a bit odd, almost off-paced. Of course there is conflict, but it's usually related to the story, rather than just artificially constructing conflict at every turn to raise the stakes. In "Spirited Away" so many of the scenes are just to develop the main character, or have Sen trying to accomplish some task, that it almost seems episodic, but it's all blended to show Sen growing and developing, which is the payoff.

A lot of American films end with the main characters exactly the same as they are at the beginning--they may know more or have some skill or confidence they lacked at the beginning, but the primary character arc is for them to start off ignorant and misunderstood, and then gain the knowledge to accomplish some task so that everyone understands who they really were all along. Seeking conflict with parents and friends and teachers and everyone else they encounter helps to enhance the payoff at the end. That's not bad, it's just nice to see something else sometimes. Miyazaki has his characters misunderstood and underestimated by some, but he also gives them a core of supporters and friends who help the character transform. Often there's not one mentor character, but a series of people who teach them.

I've watched Miyazaki a lot, and the one film I probably think of the most is one he wrote but didn't direct. It was directed by the man who was supposed to be Miyazaki's successor, but he died after this one film. It was called "Whisper of the Heart," and like most Miyazaki work, the main character is a young girl on the verge of becoming a teenager. It's just a normal coming-of-age/young love story. Most of the conflicts with other characters are resolved soon after the arise, and the main conflict is the main character trying to grow out of her old self. There are no magic lands or world-consuming struggle. Just a sweet story by an insightful artist.

Sorry. Slow day at work. :) I think about these things and have to tell someone what I've thought now and then.

[Seneca]

16. One thing my friend told me

Along the lines of what you just wrote... he said there are not really any *bad guys* in a Miyazaki film - even the occasional amoral character turns into an ally by the end of the story. It isn't a black and white world he depicts.

[sakabatou]

4. I watched that a while ago

One of my least favorite Miyazaki films.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

5. Two other anime recommendations, more serious ones

Grave of the Fireflies, a tragic story about two orphans trying to survive in wartime Japan, reveals the potential of animation for serious story telling.

Tokyo Godfathers is about three homeless people who find an apparently abandoned baby. The quality of the artwork is stunningly realistic, as are the characterizations of the homeless people (an older man, a teenage girl, and a drag queen).

[keroro gunsou]

8. grave of the fireflies

is suicidally depressing. have something fun to watch after that and keep all sharp objects away from you during the viewing.

[jobycom]

15. "Grave of the Fireflies" and "My Neighbor Totoro" were released as a double feature.

The two were a double-header when they were released, and probably killed each other's success, since they were so emotionally different. "Grave" is one of the most powerful films of any era or country, and I hope I never see it again. I do think it should be required watching for every American before they are allowed to vote, though.

I never thought Tokyo Godfathers was all that special. Worth watching, sure, but forced, or something. Just seemed artificial to me, though I liked what it tried to do. I'd put any Miyazaki film ahead of it. A simple attempt at seriousness doesn't impress me much, it just strikes me as the Emminence Front the Who hated so much. :)

[Seneca]

17. Come and join the party

dressed to kill!

[betharina]

6. you must see ponyo!

my son loves the movie. he wants to watch it over all others. alas, disney is the us distributor.

[Seneca]

26. Ponyo is on the festival list this summer too

:-)

[HopeHoops]

7. "Spirited Away" rocks. "Castle In The Sky" and "Howe's Moving Castle" are also intense.

Curiously, Miyazaki re-uses animated characters AND the voice actors associated with them. Examples: The eldest girl in Totoro (Kirsten Dunst) is the same character and voice in "Kiki's Delivery Service", AND her dad is the same animated character and voice in both movies. But just like human actors, they have completely different roles. The little girl in Totoro also stars in "Panda Go Panda". The Grandmother character in "Spirited Away" (a witch, actually) is the same face and voice as the aged girl in "Howe's Moving Castle", and at least damn close to the mother figure of the pirates in "Castle In The Sky".

Although I had heard he was retiring, not long ago he released a new movie called "Ponyo". We just rented it from RedBox (a second time) because the girls love it. My wife and I still haven't seen it.

[keroro gunsou]

9. archetypes

miyzaki-sensei is full of them, like the plucky, red-headed female hero (ponyo, nausicca, clarisse)

definately see lupin the third and the castle of cagaliostro... i cannot recommend that enough... and try to find a subtitled version, most dubs of it have been pretty... eh.

[jobycom]

13. Oh, Hell no, don't do subtitles.

You have to focus on the animation entirely. Reading subtitles for a Miyazaki film is like eating a cheesecake with duct tape on your tongue. The magic isn't in the words (which are more poorly translated in subtitles than in overdubs, anyway), it's in the film. Subtitles never, ever, ever, ever, ever, under any circumstance, capture the beauty of the original language, anyway, so why bother?

Definitely see the dubs.

[keroro gunsou]

14. eh.

i'm different. i've grown so used to reading subs to the point i barely notice them. and honestly, 90% of the dubs i've seen are complete CRAP. cowboy bebop and ghost in the shell: stand alone complex being exceptions to the rule.

[marzipanni]

18. My son and I have been fans for about 10 years

He has a Totoro picture as his computer wallpaper.

The last Studio Ghibli film we watched was "Whisper of the Heart" (the original Japanese title means "If you listen closely")
We really liked it, in fact I think I'll request it from inter-library loan again!

The screenplay was written by Hayao Miyazaki. It is the only film to be directed by Yoshifumi Kondō, who died in 1998 of a ruptured aneurysm at the age of 47. Studio Ghibli had hoped that Kondō would become the successor to Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata.

[MicaelS]

19. The Cat Returns

Is showing right now on HDNET Movies, if you receive that HD channel. A semi-sequel to Whispers of the Heart.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_Returns

[Seneca]

20. Yes

We have that channel. Thanks!

[Fire Walk With Me]

21. Miyazaki, absolutely.

But please don't mistake Pixar projects for Pixar-hired-by-Disney-related-disasters....

[Blue_Tires]

22. um...someone made a BUS out of a goddamned CAT?!?

:wtf: :wtf: :scared: :scared: :yoiks:

[keroro gunsou]

23. hai!

nekobasu desu! :D

[spinbaby]

25. nekobasu ga dai suki desu!

I love the cat bus!

(Edited to add the missing particle. I'm always dropping particles.)

[zanana1]

24. I confess that I LOVE kids' films.

Especially funny ones. I can't wait to see "Marmaduke". It's funny and it has a great big dog in it...what more could I ask?