It really says something about Ghibli films that the one about the guy who invented a warplane and the one with a mystical princess raised by wolves are among the least weird entries in the canon.
I always took the one about the witch delivering packages to be pretty normal. It’s definitely not as wacky as the one about a fish-girl who loves a boy so much after licking his finger that she tries to become human, or the aforementioned fist fighting anti fascist pig fighter ace on the run.
Or "girl is sad and runs away because her mom is sick, sister rides a cat bus to find her." Now that I think about it, Totoro is surprisingly normal. Still not quite as normal as Mononoke Hime, though. That's just environmentalist anticapitalism with elder gods.
An early short by Miyazaki just became available to stream on Mubi. It's called Yuki's Sun, and it was intended as the pilot for a tv series that ended up never being made. Well worth watching.
not to get into a whole thing but is the English dub of this good? I was a little disappointed to realize all the ghibli films I had queued up in HBO were dub only - we did enjoy the dub of Kiki’s delivery service but wondering if I should try and find subtitle versions
I've watched a lot of Ghibli films on HBO in Japanese with subtitles, I think the English dubs are just the first result. I'd double-check, they should be on there in Japanese, although you may have to twist the arm of their search algorithm a bit.
well I’m going to blame zaslav for this one because I swear when I added them a while back it was an option, but now I don’t see it - I will dig into it again before watching porco Rossi
I remember TCM aired all of those films in 03ish & I remember being like "okay, magical forest spirit, okay, beatific ghost hotel, got it, very ethereal" and then having this one come on and going "wait...BADASS PIG PILOT GETTING INTO FIST FIGHTS?!" and had my mind blown that anime could be this too
I get it, and I think that’s the immediate response that Miyazaki wants you to have.
But also… I think that maybe the deepest message of this film is that what they already have — that bittersweet holding pattern — is already “a life together,” and more than most people get.
i have to believe that they did. then they separate after 2 years later because he's simply not a good husband; they both realize that they preferred the previous setup where she pined for him on an island and he would stop by a couple times a month. then in old age they remarry, for good this time.
the best audio track for this movie is the French one; they got Jean Reno for Porco. Miyazaki himself says he prefers this audio track over all others. Also as a former USMC infantry NCO, the portrayal of survivor guilt in this film is one of the least melodramatic but most heartfelt I've ever seen.
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Plus, y'know... "Better a pig than a fascist!"
I was in Japan when it was released. My all-time fave movie title.
https://mubi.com/en/us/films/yukis-sun
But also… I think that maybe the deepest message of this film is that what they already have — that bittersweet holding pattern — is already “a life together,” and more than most people get.
That IS the beauty and tragedy of their story.
On the upside, the beach Porco used as a base for his seaplane is totally real. I'm headed there next year.