Dream wrote:Oh, i admit i'm surprised since i thought my review was cringe inducing rather than something someone would want to read.
Well, it was good review and reading it was pretty nostalgic experience beause the impact it had on you was similar to one Spirited Away had on me years ago. Really, the film changed the way how I viewed animation more than any other.
Dream wrote:(i'm only willing to watch Ghibli films on very specific/high conditions)
I don't really get what this means. Watching Ghibli film is about as safe bet as one can make with anime. Closest to swing and miss one can get is Earthsea and
not even that is worthless.
Dream wrote:By the way, i'm surprised you find Spirited Away as the superior film (presumably on plane of aesthetics and splendor) compared to Princess Mononoke when you find the latter superior in terms of ambition and complexity.
Well, in the first place when it comes to Miyazaki's top five (Laputa, Totoro, Porco Rosso, Mononoke, Spirited Away) the internal order is rather arbitrary to me and deciding actors are fairly small and insignificant so you shouldn't read too much into it. Besides, it's not like ambition or complexity
per se have anything to do with quality.
Dream wrote:Only point to which i would disagree to an extent is in fourth, while Porco is certainly not pretty or even particularly loveable in some occasions (One could possibly argue that Fio fills the role of Miyazaki girl, although even that gets a little "tainted" with the developing, ambiguous feelings of her partnership with Porco) i do believe he has a lot of appeal way beyond being a cynical loner, plus having such a rugged and "brute" protagonist is quite an interesting change of pace from the usual Ghibli protagonist.
Don't get me wrong, I love Marco. He's my favourite Ghibli main character and big reason why Porco Rosso is as good as it is. I'm just saying if you're mom wondering what to make your kids view while doing something else likes of Ponyo and Totoro are far more obvious choices than washed out antics of middleaged pig. Ditto for those looking for adventure or fantasy epics: again likes of Mononoke, Nausicaa and Laputa are far more obvious...and if you're ten year old girl there's absolutely no reason to pick Porco over Spirited Away since the latter film is pretty much squarely aimed at you.
Having said that I'm not sure where the impression of Porco not being box office hit comes from. It even sold slightly better than Kiki's Delivery Service which was their previous top seller at that point.
(it's not well known fact but while they sold tickets well neither Laputa or Totoro reached Nausicaa's level of box office success - and Ghibli's first HUGE hit was Kiki's Delivery Service. It's interesting to speculate why this was so and Totoro didn't already do the leap into biggest league: I suspect that goes down solely to fact Totoro was screened together with Grave of the Fireflies as double feature)
Dream wrote:I'm not entirely sure what you mean with "The preferences within the field, at least, seem to point towards more Japanized consensus on his best work than the perception of western audiences. " though.
Well I already detailed what I ment with diverging perceptions
here. Basically you could say, due to circumstances not having anything to do with quality of films per se, westerners overrate man's late career in comparison to early a lot - or perhaps you can't speak of overrating with films as good as his... change that: Western viewers generally speaking underrate Miyazaki's early career and due to historical, language and cultural factors can't properly understand just how important and influential works of his early career are. Most of us have been aware of man's doing for barely 10 years whereas Japanese have intimately followed his career for over 40.
This underrating holds to some extent with Ghibli (no offence to film I dig but rating Howl far above his entire pre-Mononoke output is fucking absurd) but it gets really bad when it comes to his pre-Ghibli days. It's utterly lost to most western audiences just how insanely important and influential Takahata's and Miyazaki's early careers were for the industry.
Take for example
Horus: Prince of Sun which is the most important anime feature ever made and which has defined Japanese anime more than any other work sans Astro Boy (and potentially Yamato). Second while
Castle of Cagliostro is respected and well-liked feature western viewers familiar with and expecting works along the lines of Miyazaki's post-Laputa "mature" period consistently underrate it and rather understandably fail to see just how original and influential it has been.
Further on we really don't get at all where the occasional otaku resentment for Miyazaki as a "traitor" comes from, a vitriol that slips through from some of the things GAINAX guys like Anno and Okada have had to say on his work with Ghibli. The reason this is so is because we in general have no knowledge of the fact Miyazaki was basically viewed as GOD of otaku anime from Future Boy Conan to Laputa whose works embodied all the virtues and values "they shared".
What I mean with those within animation business itself leaning towards more "japanized consensus" is simply that in the industry circles internal order of Miyazaki's films resembles more that of Japanese fans than that of western fans. To give example
In 2003
Laputa Animation Festival was held in Japan with animators all over the world participating in it. The participant animators were asked to choose 150 best animations of all time and came up with highly interesting list that shows obvious biases towards Japanese, american and european animation due to lineup of participants. Here's the top 20 of the list with works directed or related to Miyazaki bolded:
1. Hedgehog in the Fog
(Ёжик в тумане, Yuri Norstein, RUSSIA /USSR, 1975)
2. Tale of Tales (Yuri Norstein, RUSSIA /USSR, 1979)
3. Fantasia (9 Disney directors, USA, 1940)
4. The Man Who Planted Trees
(L'homme qui plantait des arbres, Frédéric Back, CANADA, 1987)
5. The Shepherdess and the Chimney Sweep
(La bergère et le ramoneur, Paul Grimault, FRANCE, 1953)
6. Future Boy Conan (未来少年コナン, Hayao Miyazaki, Japan, 1978, 26 eps.)7. My Neighbour Totoro (となりのトトロ, Hayao Miyazaki, Japan, 1988)8. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (David Hand/Disney, USA, 1937)
9. Yellow Submarine (George Dunning, UK, 1968)
10. The Little Prince and the Eight-Headed Dragon
(わんぱく王子の大蛇退治, Yugo Serikawa/William Ross, Japan/USA, 1963)
11. Horus: Prince of the Sun
(太陽の王子 ホルスの大冒険, Isao Takahata, Japan, 1968)12. Crac! (Frédéric Back, CANADA, 1981)
13. Mr. Bug Goes to Town
(aka Hoppity Goes to Town, Dave Fleischer, USA, 1941)
14. Wallace and Gromit in The Wrong Trousers (Nick Park, UK, 1993)
15. The Spider and the Tulip
(くもとちゅうりっぷ, Kenzo Masaoka, Japan, 1943)
16. Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind
(風の谷のナウシカ, Hayao Miyazaki, Japan, 1984)17. The Snow Queen
(Снежная королева, Lev Atamanov, RUSSIA/USSR, 1957)
18. Blinkity Blank (Norman McLaren,CANADA, 1955)
19. Laputa: Castle in the Sky
(天空の城ラピュタ, Hayao Miyazaki, Japan, 1986)
20. Lupin the Third: The Castle of Cagliostro
(ルパン三世, Hayao Miyazaki, Japan, 1979)The first "late" period Miyazaki feature is
29. Spirited Away - Porco Rosso and Mononoke Hime were both in 130-135 range.
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