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Spirited Away
千と千尋の神隠し
2001 · Film · 125 min
Directed by Hayao Miyazaki
A young girl, Chihiro, becomes trapped in a strange new world of spirits. When her parents undergo a mysterious transformation, she must call upon the courage she never knew she had to free her family.
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129 comments on Hacker News
I love art, and I have a particular weakness for the style of art you're using for the project. Not sure if you'd give a fig, but I have bookmarked it just to watch. I guess there will always be something new, and live humans are there, organizing the image in real time. As an outlier and unintended fan, I appreciate your work.
Edit: I should say that I left films such as Arrietty and other Japanimations (Kaguya, Fireflies Grave, Spirited Away) I can't recall, wanting to return and stay there. I guess on occasion, this might help.
I can't recommend a specific order but...
If looking for "adventure" go with Laputa, Cagliostro, maybe Porco Rosso.
If looking for something "warm" go with Totoro, Kiki, Ponyo.
If looking for something more "fantastical" (probably also more complex) try Howl's, Spirited Away, Nausicaä, Mononoke.
If you are willing to consider a TV show, then Sherlock Hound is really fun and delightful in every possible way. The complete series is IIRC 26 episodes.
Also, there are some non-Miyazaki but still Ghibli films which you may want to consider too. Personally, I absolutely love Mimi wo Sumaseba and I can hear the sea, but these may well be a bit uninteresting for a 10 year old; better for a teen probably over 15 I'd guess. Pompoko is clearly recommended for your age bracket though, and it's fun too.
Finally, there's the question of Grave of the Fireflies. I think 15 is probably fine, 10... maybe. But in any case, be warned that it's a very sad story and I have very rarely met someone who could watch it without crying profusely.
Miyazaki's films are often more similar to the traditional four-part Kishōtenketsu[0] story structure rather than the more common three-act or Hero's Journey style. If you're not used to that structure you can find it boring or difficult to immerse yourself in. I love a lot of Miyazaki films and I think My Neighbour Totoro[1] is one of the finest movies ever created, but I can't just throw them on like I can most movies; if I'm not in the right mood for them I'll just get bored.
For a practical advice, I'd suggest watching either The Wind Rises (if you want strictly Miyazaki) or Only Yesterday (if any Ghibli is fine) next. Neither will have the strict conclusion that you are looking for, but they both are more "adult" films that are similar to Western dramas so you might find your brain is more accepting of that. At the very least you might find them more relatable than his other films and their child protagonists; I think The Wind Rises should speak well to any tech worker these days.
For less useful advice: it wasn't until I had an apartment high enough that I could see the skyline over the trees did I begin to understand why artists painted clouds the colors they did[2]. All art is holding a mirror up to nature, sometimes you gotta touch grass before you can get it.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kish%C5%8Dtenketsu
[1] Castle in the Sky and Porco Rosso are my favourite Ghibli films, but Totoro I think is the greatest children's movie of all time and one of the few films capable of reminding someone what being a child is really like. I never got into Spirited Away or Howls Moving Castle though.
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Levitan_Evening_bells_1892.jpg
What an fantastic problem to have! A few Ghibli films are a tad too odd or serious in tone for a movie night, but I can heartily recommend Ponyo, M.N. Totoro, and Spirited Away, the first being probably the most light-hearted and simple fun.
As for Princess mononoke it's a bit hard to write down everything. It's Miyazakis magnus opus. (not spirited away. That was explicitly to woo western audience with oriental mysticism)
It's a story of conflict and mistakes. Do you watch a history movie about WW1 and also get perplexed "and then they did WW2, What?". As said, it's not a story about linear start-end like theater. It's a snapshot of a historical event.
And the idea is not industrial revolution. The idea is that tatara village is a sanctuary for the outcast. The place is for prostitutes and slaves that fled. Eboshi, is presented as this opportunistic woman but also simultaneously presented as a savior that even accommodate lepers. During the story, the village is also attacked by Samurais; the outer world "lords" that shunned the outcasts, and now that they're successful, come to ask for tithe. Something the village shuns by shooting at the emissary. This leads to war. The Eboshi is desperate and contact the Buddhist monk and get a formar letter from the emperor to hunt for the god, to gain legitimacy and protection.
The nature, Shishigami, doesn't care. They explicitly say that in the end. It's the process of nature and doesn't choose sides. and really, for everyone to move on, in a harsh world, is to be "OK" with what happened. This is more realistic than some story of tragedy or revenge that have an "end of history" synonymous as "the end of the story". Life goes on.
Miyazaki have been anti industrial, pro nature all his life. But, he also admits that industry is helping humans. The tatara village is just that. They are "evil" from mononoke and forest spirits point of view, but they're the down trodden, desperate that finally built a place for them.
The point of the movie is that Ashitaka, the outsider, that comes from a dying tribe in Japan peninsula, realize that his deadly curse is not caused by monochrome "evil, selfish people" or "revengeful nature". But that everyone (except the samurai and monks) have their reasons for the actions, and that lead to conflict. That in the end, would lead to destruction and the only way to live is to coexist.
The story of coexistence START at the end of the movie. Which is ofc underwhelming to watcher if you want a definitive answer of "will it work? Is this happy ever after? Who won? Whose story is this". The anser is "we don't know, we don't know, and the story is the event that transpired".
Most ghibli stories (that are actually written by Miyazaki) follow similar patterns. History continues
Can someone explain why the Ghibli films are so popular?
I’ve been on a Ghibli binge this week because my wife can’t believe that I’ve never watched any of their films so we’ve watched 1 a day. I wasn’t intentionally avoiding them, they just didn’t seem interesting based on the few clips I’ve seen. Having watched a few, my opinion is unchanged. I enjoyed them, I just don’t ‘get’ the craze.
While the films are generally beautifully animated, I simply couldn’t get into the stories nor understand why they’re so highly acclaimed. I say this as an anime fan and a fairly typical otaku.
The stories don’t really have a proper conclusion, it’s often a pattern of a thing happened, let’s undo the thing, life goes on.
The Japanese voice acting is often quite bad as Miyazaki seems to have a very thing against using professional voice actors.
The music’s cool though.
- Nausica
- Raputa
- Totoro
- Mononoke
- Spirited away
- Howl
Okay. Let's say we find out tomorrow that Spirited Away was animated via generative AI. Unbeknownst to everyone, Ghibli has a top-secret AI division which—thanks to some key lucky breakthroughs—is many decades ahead of everyone else and has been for a long time. The animators are a front to hide the truth; Miyazaki's anti-AI declarations were pure jealousy.
Would Spirited Away no longer be a good film?
As much as I love Spirited Away and Castle in the Sky, I've been so bummed Miyazaki hasn't returned to more adult storylines.
Princess Mononoke and Nausicaa are two of my top ten films. I'd do anything to have Miyazaki make one more.
I even bought Miramax's old marketing website and kept it online [1].
I was lucky enough to teach English in Hokkaido [2], which is where Ghibli animators drew inspiration for Princess Mononoke. It's such a beautiful place, and you can feel it in the film.
[1] http://www.princess-mononoke.com/ (I should get SSL certs but I haven't touched it in years.)
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46035689
I think you're just interpreting the meaning of "made to be sold" very literally. Of course artists want to make a living and have their art be appreciated, so they expect pieces to be sold; but that is not the main motivation behind making the art, where commercial "art" - advertising, mainstream cinema, pop music, most art galleries, anime, 80% of what you see in arts and crafts fairs, pieces in IKEA - is created with profit as the main motive.
Going back to the origin of this, stating that Ghibli style videos generated with SORA (which the OP initially called "content") are equivalent to Studio Ghibli movies because they are both "art made to be sold" would be wild. A film like Spirited Away took over 1 million hours of work, if making money was the main goal it would have never happened.
I've been to Dōgo Onsen several times, but I had no idea of the putative connection to Spirited Away. If you'd asked me at the time, I never would have made the connection based on visuals alone. They're really overstating the case.
Point being: please don't rush here based on this article. It's an old bathhouse with tiny baths and a somewhat unique interior for Japan. The most interesting part is honestly the imperial bath suite, which is a museum that can only be accessed via appointment. The "Spirited Away bathhouse" is an entirely fictional construct based on a bunch of different locations, and Ghibli has said that there's no existing bathhouse that models the one on the movie.
I hate this kind of lazy tourist porn. For the past several years everyone has been overcrowding Shima Onsen in Gunma, because the outside of that one looks a bit like the movie, and lots of articles were written saying the same things. If you want Ghibli, go to the museum in Tokyo, and don't overwhelm random places looking for something that doesn't exist.
It's certainly his biggest world, and the themes of climate change and environmentalism are directly relevant.
I still am not sure which between Nausicaa the manga, Nausicaa the film, Princess Mononoke, or Spirited Away are his magnum opus. They are all spectacular.
I posted below about his manga, "Shuna's Journey". It's also exceedingly relevant.
I grew up with both Miyazaki and Bluth films.
I love Secret of NIMH, All Dogs Go To Heaven, etc. but let's not whitewash over history. He also did "A Troll in Central Park".
For every mediocre movie like Earthsea, there's also fantastic movies like Porco Rosso, Spirited Away, Naussica, etc - all of which I watched as a "kid".
They both had their highs and lows. Seems rather pointless to try and bench them against each other.
It's either Totoro, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, Lauputa, or Kiki's Delivery Service for me. Depending on the phase of the moon.
But yeah, there are not many directors like Miyazaki or Kubrick left.
Maybe I could count Céline Sciamma to the same company. I wish she would make a new movie soon.
In children’s movies the antagonist/monster is often meant as a metaphor for the child’s lack of autonomy in an ambivalent world that they do not fully understand.
And then you have My Neighbor Totoro, where all the monsters are friends, and the bad guy is just chronic illness, children who have let their imaginations run wild and fear the worst, a sibling getting lost, and at the end basically nothing happens which is the best news considering. There is no metaphor for human struggle, it’s just human struggle.
While some of his movies like Castle In the Sky, Mononoke and Nausicaä follow a modified Hollywood bad guy arc (in Castle half the bad guys practically become chosen family, in Spirited Away they become allies), a lot don’t. Up on Poppy Hill is essentially two teenagers in love discovering to their horror that they are first cousins, despair, and then discover that one of them was adopted.
But in all of them is the self-rescuing princess. The child either has to save themselves or at least demand the help that they are rightfully entitled to.
I got to introduce some kids to Ghibli right as Disney started distributing them. If you’ve seen Lasseter’s introduction to Spirited Away that’s where we were at that time - I’m telling you a secret that should not be a secret. And they in turn “forced” their friends to watch them in the same way my generation forced people to watch The Princess Bride; like it was a moral imperative to postpone other plans and rectify this egregious oversight in their education.
You're entirely missing the point. The average western person has never heard of or seen any Ghibli movies. GPT use is heavily skewed by nerdy types. The average football watching big-bang-theory-is-a-smart-show type person doesn't know what any of this is.
If Ghibli feels like they are getting screwed, they could've taken this opportunity to promote themselves, is the parent's point. If I were in their marketing dept I would have been screaming "guys, non-weeaboo people are seeing our name in the news, let's fucking capitalize!" When has Ghibli ever trended? Set up some screenings or stream Spirited Away on their site for a couple weeks or somethin. If they want to win hearts and minds, that's what you have to do. As of now, it's already out of the MSM news cycle and forgotten.
"There’s a perfect example of this in the leafy western suburbs of Tokyo, home to one of the city’s most popular attractions: the museum of the famed anime production company Studio Ghibli, creator of globally acclaimed films including Spirited Away (2001) and The Boy and the Heron (2023). Inside the immaculately designed and managed facility is a replica of the director Hayao Miyazaki’s workspace. It is a glorious mess."
>What am I missing? What should an old fart who's becoming convinced things were better in the old days put myself infront of?
I think no reply are really getting at this question.
If you consider the two latter Miyazaki movies not being included, I think "greats" to you must be something that is "very unique and distinct from the western (animated) movie but also distinct enough from its own (anime) peers".
If you see it that is way, Howl's was not distinct at all (based on a UK book & doing what worked in spirited away) and boy and the heron (essentially reusing expressions from all the works of Miyazaki).
I think you're just looking for that "wow" factor again. Something that put your mind at edge because your brain couldn't predict what will happen next, because they don't follow usual (selling) clichés in story telling or cinematography.
I don't think many anime of today really have that. The only one I can think of is the original Evangelion but that's quite old now too. Maybe Attack of Titan, Pluto, but that's a bit subjective.
I can think of multiple Mangas that would fall in to that. Mangas allow more artistic freedom because it's made by a smaller team, and requires smaller fan base so can be bold in trying new expressions. But might lose its charm when (if) adapted to animation. Ghost in the shell mentioned in the original post too, is Very different from the Manga. (source material) and to people that really got intrigued by the deeper theme about consciousness they might prefer the Manga more.
I haven't watched it myself but maybe the recent adaptation of Junji Itos horror might fall under that "wow" category. His style (in writing) is very unique.
[not the OP]
I find it quite amusing what many people (including myself sometimes) have a pretty blurry memory about when we moved from VHS.
But I think it mostly contributes on what for some people VHS were a dominant media for quite a while, because they didn't had the means to see the digital media.
It's easier to understand what the first [commercially] successful DVD player was PlayStation 2, which became available ~2001. Before that DVDs were quite a costly[0] endeavour.
But at the same time people with the access to a computer (and a local 'everything for $15' totally-legit-shop) had the benefits of DivX ;) releases on a plain CD-ROMs, which every home computer had.
Some anecdata: I first seen Blade (1998) on VHS, but The Matrix (1999) on DivX rip, yet (I think) Spirited Away (2001) on VHS. I frequented a local VHS rental (because a friend worked there and so it places it up to 2002? 2001?) so I had seen a lot of films on VHS, but again, by 2002 it was a meme how people searching for XXX on DC++ got XXX (2002) instead.
[0] https://www.hometheaterforum.com/community/threads/your-1st-dvd-player-vs-1st-blu-ray-player-how-much-and-when-did-you-buy.273256/
These are just my favorites, and in the order of which the popped into my mind.
- Office Space, 1999 (especially for people who work at offices) - The Matrix, 1999 - Fight Club, 1999 :)
Umm, what else? - Spirited Away, 2001 (and many others from Miyazaki) - Requiem for a Dream, 2000 (Very Heavy addiction-related film! I actually got watery eyes just by typing this, I've seen it too many times.) - Joker, 2019 - Full Metal Jacket, 1987 (and many others from Kubrick, such as Dr. Strangelove and The Shining) - Django Unchained, 2012 (and many others from Tarantino, at least Pulp Fiction) - Alien, 1979 - The Silence of the Lambs, 1991 - Saw, 2004
I made a bit longer list, so that I can share the link to my friends.
Actually there are many quirky ones which came to my mind, such as Borat, the South Park movie, Team America, Airplane! (alternatively titled Flying High!), Idiocracy and Hangover, but I wouldn't say these are in the must-see category. Actually I wouldn't even recommend these to most people, if I didn't know what kind of humor they like.
I think it comes down to whether or not you enjoy slice of life. I just watched My Neighbor Totoro with my daughter. It was the first time for both of us. I found it amazing, but, ultimately, nothing actually happens in the movie. Spirited Away and some of the other movies are obviously more fantastical, but they still share a kind of mundane, day-to-day feel to their plots.
I would recommend starting with Spirited Away. It has a bit faster pacing than some of the others, and tons of interesting creatures that really show off the character design prowess. I love Miyazaki and Ghibli films in general, but they do put some people to sleep.
I thought Spirited Away (made in 2001) was awful, so much so that I didn't watch anything Miyazaki made after that for years.
I tried The Wind Rises (made in 2013), also found it terrible.
However, before those two films, I had seen several Studio Ghibli's earlier movies and found them pretty good. I thought Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (pre-Ghibli but the same group of people, with director Miyazaki) was absolutely amazing. So my impression is that their earlier films are much better than their newer works.
The "right" way to do Zelda as a movie is to do it as a Studio Ghibli style animation. I'd go see that -- think Spirited Away meets Wind Waker.
Hollywood formula will suck for it.
I don't really (honestly) understand this critique.
What's wrong in being honest?
Goro works are inferior to his father's works on many levels.
He's no amateur, that's for sure, but he's no master either.
Among the best Japanese animation artists, he's probably average.
He's no Takahata, Oshii, Otomo, Anno, Watanabe, Hosoda by a long shot.
Hayao worst rated works on Rotten Tomatoes are "The cat returns" and "The wind rises" and I completely agree on that, with a rating of 88%.
Goro worst is "Earwig and the Witch" that I have not watched with a 28%, "Tales From Earthsea" that I've seen and did not like much with 38% and the best is "From Up on Poppy Hill" with 87%, which was good, but not "Spirited Away", "Princess Mononoke" or "Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind" good.
And Nausicaa itself is not as good as a movie as the manga, that is an order of magnitude better!
This is excellent news!
Nippon Television holds exclusive rights to shows Ghibli content in Japan (which could go for a much higher value and viewership elsewhere), but the important thing is the relationship between Nippon's manager (Okuda) for their Ghibli relationship. For years, he would visit the studio day after day, just to hang out with the team and Miyazaki.
Okuda's family and Miyazaki's family went to a retreat together (as they did every summer) and that experience became the basis for Spirited Away. That is why Ghibli stuck with Nippon through the years and likely resulted in this buyout.
From the Kingdom of Dreams and Madness Documentary:
"When producer Suzuki meets a group of new Nippon TV employees, he tells them that they shared a long professional and private relationship with Seiji Okuda from NTV. It was after a trip to the mountains with Okuda and his daughter, that gave inspiration to the movie Spirited Away."
This is basically Steve Jobs selling Pixar to Disney... this relationship is about more than money, it's about trust and stewardship.
The dude has been saying latest-film will be his "last" film since, what? Spirited Away? Princess Mononoke.
Miyazaki is going to make movies until he dies. Full stop. His son is not as talented as he is, and I don't see him passing the torch anytime soon.
In somewhat related news Studio Ghibli recently released new last Miyazaki animated movie - The Boy and the Heron - with pretty much no marketing, as in not even a trailer. Its opening box office surpassed that of Spirited Away.
I haven't gone super-super-deep into Ghibli but I feel confident saying either My Neighbor Totoro or Spirited Away.
Be careful to keep your expectations straight for any of the Ghibli films you watch after Spirited Away though, because it's possibly their best. I go back and forth on that or Princess Mononoke taking the crown.
If I had significant wealth, one of the things I'd do would be to try and commission Miyazaki to make another film in the same veins as Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind or Princess Mononoke. Maybe adapting his earlier Shuna no Tabi manga, which was also great. I'd even settle for something more kid-friendly like Castle in the Sky or Spirited Away.
I know money probably wouldn't sway him, but a donation to something he cared about... maybe. It's just an unrealistic hope, anyway.
I can't stand that there's nothing else like Princess Mononoke or Nausicaa. The world needs more Miyazaki, and especially his adult-themed sci-fi and fantasy.
Miyazaki is a treasure. I'm going to miss having him.
Article ends with "And let’s not forget the monster 2020 success of Demon Slayer: Mugen Train, whose 40 billion yen domestic gross demolished Spirited Away’s record of the highest-grossing film of all time in Japan."
Nitpick:
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_Japanese_films - it shows Demon Slayer at ¥40,430,000,000 (2020) and Spirited Away at ¥31,680,000,0000 (2001). This is like comparing $220 million to $290 million so it's not exactly 'demolishing' IMO.
I asked a frAInd what famous actors dubbed miyzazki movies:
"Spirited Away" (2001) - Daveigh Chase, Jason Marsden, and Susan Egan.
"Princess Mononoke" (1997) - Billy Crudup, Claire Danes, Minnie Driver, and Billy Bob Thornton.
"My Neighbor Totoro" (1988) - Dakota Fanning and Elle Fanning.
"Howl's Moving Castle" (2004) - Christian Bale, Emily Mortimer, Jean Simmons, and Billy Crystal.
"Ponyo" (2008) - Cate Blanchett, Matt Damon, Tina Fey, and Liam Neeson.
"The Wind Rises" (2013) - Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Emily Blunt, and Stanley Tucci.
"Porco Rosso" (1992) - Michael Keaton and Cary Elwes.
"Kiki's Delivery Service" (1989) - Kirsten Dunst, Phil Hartman, and Janeane Garofalo.
My children have found most of the Studio Ghibli films unsettling and slightly scary. They watched them I guess when they were in the 6-10 age range and saw My Neighbour Totoro, Spirited Away, Ponyo, Howl's Moving Castle etc. They refuse to watch Studio Ghibli films these days! I'd much rather watch them than Disney but they somehow couldn't cope with them.
Do they? They are from Japan, not Hollywood. Very different business culture. And while they are successful and beloved, compared to Pixar they only made small money. They only have one movie who made comparable money to a Pixar movies, which was Spirited Away in 2002/2003, and it "only" made as much as Toy Story in 1995, and a bit more than "A Bug's Life" in 1998.
So even if investors in Hollywood knew about Ghibli around that time, they probably didn't consider it as a relevant investment.
To clarify, by “adult themes” I didn’t mean that they aren’t suitable for children. Just they didn’t really hold my kids’ interest.
I watched bunch of Studio Ghibli movies with my kids when they were age 4 - 6 or so. Spirited Away, Totoro, Kiki’s Delivery Service, Castle in the Sky, and Nausicaa. The pacing is quite a bit slower, and the action more subdued than in Pixar movies and other animation targeted at kids.
My kids tended to gravitate toward Pokemon, Crayon Shin-chan, Doraemon, and other animation aimed at kids - which I don’t really have any problem with. Also Demon Hunter and One Piece - which we probably shouldn’t let them watch - but they seemed to handle it ok. And finally YouTube, which is mostly trash, but we tolerate in moderation. I would definitely be happy if they showed more interest in Ghibli movies - but it’s hard to compete with endorphin rush of YouTube.
I'm pretty sure every film since Spirited Away has been his last film. And I hope he has many more last films - they're all wonderful.
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Not to be pedantic, but aren't the Studio Ghibli movies painted as well? They use(used?) poster paint for most of their movies (spirited Away, Princess mononoke, etc).
This is neat anyhoot!
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This isn't the case - Studio Ghibli's English dubs have always been perfect, with the studio being very careful about their quality, and in some movies such as Spirited Away, there's sometimes even details of the original design that are expressed in the English dub that weren't in the Japanese version, like a side character's name.
Neil Gaiman changed Kaya from Ashitaka's romantic partner to younger sister. He also inserted a fart joke into a moment that didn't deserve it.
The dub is above average, but the original with subs is the best way to watch the film.
Mononoke Hime is still in my top 25 films. If you haven't seen it, please treat yourself. I think it's far better than Sen to Chihiro / Spirited Away.
(FWIW, I bought the domain for Miramax's original marketing page and kept it online: http://princess-mononoke.com)
Yup. Even if you only look within a relatively small category of films one per year can miss a bunch. For example, consider the category of animated feature length films released after 2000 in the US, and pick one per year by picking the winner of the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.
In 2001 you'd miss Monsters, Inc. because of Shrek.
In 2002 you'd miss Lilo & Stitch because of Spirited Away.
In 2004 you'd miss Shrek 2 because of The Incredibles.
In 2005 you'd miss Howl's Moving Castle and Corpse Bride because of Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.
In 2008, no Kung Fu Panda because of WALL-E.
In 2009, no Coraline or Fantastic Mr. Fox because of Up.
In 2010 you'd miss How to Train Your Dragon because of Toy Story 3.
In 2011 no Kung Fu Panda 2 because of Rango.
In 2012 no Frankenweenie, ParaNorman, The Pirates! Band of Misfits, or Wreck-it Ralph because of Brave.
In 2014 no How to Train Your Dragon 2 because of Big Hero 6.
2015 no Shaun the Sheep Movie because of Inside Out.
2016 you miss Kubo and the Two Strings and Moana because of Zootopia.
2019 No How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World because of Toy Story 4.
2021 you'd miss Raya and the Last Dragon and Luca because of Encanto.
Most of the winners are good...but if you just put all the above mentioned films in a pool and asked most people to pick their top 14, most would have a lot of films on their list that were not among the winners of the aforementioned years.
that's great detail to add, but i'd still contend chihiro's journey is squarely about placing the self without the context of family and tradition, which is a super common theme in eastern cinema and literature. the spirits together form her past and come together to shape her (future) identity, something she's not even aware of before her journey.
her self discovery is certainly initiated by an uneasy transition point in her life (moving), but i'd argue that geting beyond that discomfort is not the main point of the movie. and for sure, the spirits are mischievous, but they all carry their own baggage that they try to dump on her (sometimes literally), which is what she's directly and figuratively resisting via all the hoop jumping. she's picking and choosing who she's going to be based on what her ancestors (loosely speaking) are trying to foist onto her. the yokai[0] are stuck in the past but she's not, and she must move beyond her ancestral past to escape back into her real life (which is symbolic of her forming the kernel of self identity). this is where your point about the future (and moving forward) dovetails nicely.
in that way spirited away is a story about a young human going through the process of realizing that they are a self-aware and self-actualizing person destined to become an adult (who much couch themselves in family and tradition), and not simply a child who can play and not care about the world (and her parents especially) anymore.
[0]: it's neat to see the parallel with yaoguai, which is the chinese version of these little demons/goblins, as i've more recently been watching wuxia/xianxia dramas.
My strategy is to provide selective spoilers. I think the scary/violent parts of movies are easier on children when they are prepared emotionally that everything will be ok.
So for Spirited Away I warned them in advance, “It’s got scary parts-for example, her parents get turned into pigs! But it all turns out ok in the end. You’ll have to watch to see how.”
And for “Lupin the Third: The Castle of Cagliostro” something similar: “Just so you know, there’s one part where he gets shot with a gun and blood comes out. But don’t worry he doesn’t die.”
That feels a bit like he hasn’t seen much Anime. Spirited Away was my first Miyazaki movie and I was similarly blown away, but after watching his other work and other Anime it felt more like a very polished and creative story but not mind-blowing in its originality.
> A big thing with Japanese folk tales that is a bit of a jump for people with a European perspective is that they have no moral lesson.
I would argue that's not the case as there are plenty of morally naturalistic European works (e.g. Alice in Wonderland, upon which Spirited Away, among other anime, is based) just as there are plenty of morally didactic Japanese works. The movie may not be as blatant as an Aesop. It's certainly layered with subtext, but it's also a much simpler picture than most make it out to be.
There is a lesson, and it's one given in the form of a command by Hakku towards the film's end:
"Leave...and don't look back."
Chihiro's (and the audience's) lesson is to move forward in life, just as she's done up to that point. If you recall, the movie begins in media res as Chihiro is being driven away from her soon-to-be-former hometown. She looks sullen as she fidgets in the back of her father's SUV while clutching a bouquet implied to have been recieved from a friend or wellwisher in an attempt to hold on to the past. Despite being on the road for at most a few hours, she already misses whomever and whatever she and her parents were leaving behind. She's clearly frustrated by what seems to be an unneeded change in her life.
Throughout the movie, she faces one resentful change of circumstance after another. A change almost always inflicted upon her by an authority figure. As she develops a greater sense of agency, she takes it upon herself to change her own circumstances, and eventually the circumstances of almost every character she comes across including said authority figures.
The point of the movie is that things will change whether it's for the worse or the better, and you can either be swept by the river of events that is life or set your own terms and act accordingly. That's not to say that the latter choice will always bear desirable fruit, especially without a prepared plan. Such a choice can horribly backfire even with planning and preparation. Nevertheless, one should refrain from abdicating one's will in the pursuit of a goal. Instead, one should, inasmuch as one can, choose and direct the path that will take one forward.
If you liked his review of Spirited Away, you will also like his review of Metropolis. I liked that he enjoyed movies from all genres as long as they accomplished what they set out to do.
> The movie is so visually rich I want to see it again to look in the corners and appreciate the details. Like all the best Japanese anime, it pays attention to little things. There is a scene where an old man consults a book of occult lore. He opens it and starts to read. A page flips over. He flips it back in place. Considering that every action in an animated film requires thousands of drawings, a moment like the page flip might seem unnecessary, but all through the movie we get little touches like that.
https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/metropolis-2002
> There is something about this movie that totally grinds my gears, and I cannot put my finger on it.
Spirited Away is beautiful, in the artistic sense of the word. It has no real story, and is just a hodgepodge of Japanese folklore pieced together to half-resemble even a mild plot.
The rest of the stuff that isn't folklore-related is just the anthropomorphic elements Miyazaki added in as filler because of "kawaii".
-----------------
And as an aside.... "Had to scroll down quite a bit on the HN page to find your comment, obviously it has been downvoted because having this opinion is apparently not allowed in this world."
It's not the "world" that has this problem. It's hacker news. This place seriously has a groupthink problem. For this site, "Disagree(opinion)" == "Disagree(factually incorrect)" == "Disagree(against group opinion) == "Disagree(no reason)" are all given the same weight, and the same gray-on-offwhite text.
It’s interesting how my appreciation of the “minor” Miyazaki movies grew with times.
I genuinely believe both Spirited Away and Momonoke Hope are better films from a critical standpoint but Kiki’s Delivery Service, Porco Rosso and The Castle of Cagliostro are the ones I have rewatched the most.
Miyazaki really is a master of the adventure genre. All his movies are incredibly tight when it comes to the pacing and I think lighter plots allow this to really shine and make for incredibly breezy movies.
What I love about these types of Japanese art is how the magic and the surreal become normalised in a way that western films rarely go anywhere near. I'm not a big anime fan by any stretch of the imagination, but films like Spirited Away and my personal favourite: Tekkonkinkreet just blow my mind with the sheer creative breadth of the vision.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfQjc2hs34Y
I first saw Spirited Away when I was ten years old or so, and then watched it a bunch of times until I was 16 or so. Many years later, last year when I was in my mid twenties, I rewatched it and it was such a totally different experience.
I think in the time between, I've developed a much better appreciation for the beauty of a lot of the scenery in the movie: even the day later I still had the flower garden scene before my eyes, even if it's so short itself. It just gives and gives and gives, it is so amazing. I think I lacked that appreciation when I was a kid.
I also realized how much my fear of losing my parents has changed. When you are a little kid who loves and is so dependent on his parents, this is the worst catastrophy that can happen to you, and instills such fear. It strikes so different years later when you are a proper adult who has moved out and I only realized that once I actually rewatched it.
It is a movie about the first job, the first love, about independence, about travel, about human's destruction of nature, about japanese religion, and many more things. It is such an amazing beautiful movie. In our field of work you can find many fans of japan's cultural exports, and that's fine, but I was never really deeply into most of it. But Studio Ghibli stuff is just so amazing, I am a great fan (plus Your Name).
/why/ do you think it was made?
>The film was made to please the ten-year-old daughter of Hayao Miyazaki's personal friend, director Seiji Okuda.
https://ghibli.fandom.com/wiki/Spirited_Away
A big thing with Japanese folk tales that is a bit of a jump for people with a European perspective is that they have no moral lesson. They are just a bunch of things that happen. It is fun to watch western audiences come up with theories about what these movies might represent, when they are just very Japanese. There are themes for sure and obvious messages about overconsumption and greed. But they are more about animism. For me the bit that sticks in my mind about spirited away is the part with the empty train going through the water and it just feels so lonely. I can't describe it very well, but I can't think of another depiction of that feeling.
If the movie doesn't hit you, that's alright. Not every movie has to connect with everyone.
However there is a lot under the surface. Find some theories and interpretations below, and decide for yourself how much water they hold.
https://sites.psu.edu/angelapassion/2016/07/02/spirited-away/
https://visualculture.blog.torontomu.ca/capitalism-in-miyazakis-spirited-away/
https://www.thedailystar.net/shout/news/the-metaphors-capitalism-and-hustle-culture-spirited-away-2937861
I watched it, and rewatched it, because my girlfriend is really into these movies. I just don't understand the point. It seems so aimless to me. Can someone explain the fascination with Spirited Away?
Animated movies that I often rewatch (in no particular order):
- Spirited Away
- Grave of the Fireflies
- Finding Dory
- Up
- Tokyo Godfathers
- Akira (NOT the English dub, which completely changes the story and dialogue for the worse, and for no good reason)
- Mononoke Hime
- Ghost in the Shell (the original one)
- My Neighbor Totoro
Animated series I'll rewatch:
- Guardian of the Sacred Spirit
- Castlevania
- Futurama
- Archer
- Arcane
- Cowboy Bebop
- Ergo Proxy
- The Dragon Prince
- Hakaba Kitaro
- Star Trek: Lower Decks
I was high when I watched Spirited Away for the first time. I liked it so much I almost cried sometimes. After that watching I watched this movie multiple times without getting bored. What a masterpiece.
On the Ghibli corpus: I recently watched As the Wind rises and I was completely blown away by the kind of perspective it offered into the japanese society of the time.
It is more mature than Spirited Away and definitly worth a watch if you are an engineer as the story is a free fictionalization of the life of the engineer that designed the japanese fighter airplane nicknamed "Zero". The classic Ghibli motifs of clouds, grassy mountaintops and fantasy of flying play their role as one might have guessed — but coupled with the serious and mature topics of the film it is even more magical when in a quiet scene the wind strokes through the grass.
As an Austrian who lives in Germany I also liked the scene where they traveled to Germany to see the Junkers plant (with the goal of spying of course) — I liked it because it offered a unique perspective on Germany of the time.
It was one of those Ghiblis I never watched because of odd reasons, but when I did I was blown away.
I always enjoy rereading the review Roger Ebert wrote when he added Spirited Away to his Great Movies list [1]. He touches on a similar point, about how the movie all feels like a gift:
>The story of "Spirited Away" has been populated with limitless creativity. Has any film ever contained more different kinds of beings that we have never seen anywhere before? Miyazaki's imagination never rests. There is a scene where the heroine and her companion get off a train in the middle of a swamp. In the distant forest they see a light approaching. This turns out to be an old-fashioned light pole that is hopping along on one foot. It bows to them, turns, and lights the way on the path they must take. When they arrive at a cottage, it dutifully hangs itself above the gate. The living light pole is not necessary. It is a gift from Miyazaki.
https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-spirited-away-2002
Definitely do not show them Spirited Away as a young child. I was permanently scarred (emotionally) by the grotesqueness of no-face as a child (~5). It really depends on the movie, but the ones with more mature themes should be left until they are at least in their teens. As a blanket statement, I would not generally say Ghibli films are as suitable for really young children as Disney/Pixar films are.
Mary and the Witch's Flower was an utter disappointment for me. They clearly were giving nods to Spirited away and trying to capture its magic, but somehow it all felt very shallow. And those scenes when some action things happen under exactly the same musical motif... the third time it happened, it felt super lazy. Like, mr movie director, did you run out of music samples?
spirited away is amazing because of the chihiro's journey through the fantastical world of the kami, where she has to contend with not only her own present but generations past and all their virtue and vice. it's about the ever-present struggle to place oneself in a world built upon tradition and deference. this is a common theme in east asian tv and film, but miyazaki explores it in such an enveloping and actually rather gentle way, filled with symbolism and mysticism. the film's representation of coming of age seems to be external (overcoming spirits), but it's all about the girl's coming to terms with herself in relation to her parents and everyone who came before them. it's a blip in her life externally but internally, everything has changed. chihiro transforms in that little blip.
i haven't seen nausicaä yet, but all the ghibli films are great (except perhaps arrietty, as noted in a nearby comment). porco rosso was fun and more action oriented than most ghibli films. it's been a while since i've seen castle in the sky but it sits storywise between mononoke and howl's moving castle in my head.
Spirited away has a shiny fairground visuals but really dark undercurrents. Not my favorite even if technically is great. Mononoke is deliberately gross and confusing in some moments. Not for small children.
Ponyo or Totoro would rank much higher for me. Ponyo is really smart in many aspects. The Tomb of fireflies is a terrible and depressing black hole, but maybe a necessary experience. Porco rosso is the opposite, light and very enjoyable.
In any case this article is related clearly with the fact that Mononoke is again broadcasted in the movie theaters just this week.
> spirited away is hands down the best ghibli film
next to Mononoke and Nausicaä, sure
As a counterpoint, I thought that was maybe my least favorite movie directed by Miyazaki!
Even a bad Miyazaki movie is pretty good, but for me it didn't have what makes his other movies special. I'd recommend it only if a person absolutely can't, say, tolerate elements of the fantastical in their entertainment. The lead character is an engineer who makes planes, but the movie (understandably) doesn't really go into that part.
Mononoke is probably tied with Wind Rises for "most serious Miyazaki movie." which might make it a perfect starting point for some in the HN crowd.
Spirited Away is probably the closest to a universal crowd-pleaser?
I watched it as a teen at a friend's house around year 2000. Might have been an early bootleg, he was really into bootlegged Japanese VHS tapes. I found the story and tone really disturbing. I remembered it this way, and wasn't really interested in seeing it again.
Didn't watch it again until maybe a year ago when my wife wanted to watch it. She's gotten really into Studio Ghibli and we've been working our way through the catalog. Even so, I was actually still hesitant to watch it.
I found it much different than I remembered. Layered story with actual shades of gray that Hollywood isn't capable of producing. Only movie I can think of where there are multiple factions and none of them are clearly good or bad. Compelling narrative all around. It's genuinely a masterwork only outdone by Spirited Away.
Point of my story is, I wasn't ready for it, I don't know if America was.
In my humble opinion, Spirited Away also kind of falls apart at the end. I never really got a sense of resolution from that movie. Not so for Mononoke.
yes, spirited away is hands down the best ghibli film, for that ability to grab your spirit and transform it alongside chihiro's (the young protagonist). it's probably one of my top 5 or top 10 films of all time.
i liked mononoke, but it felt heavy-handed in comparison, so it doesn't rate as highly in my book. it would have rated way worse had disney gotten its way with it.
edit: totoro would be #2, kaguya and grave of the fireflies would be tied for #3/4, then howl's moving castle at #5, then ponyo, mononoke, and kiki's delivery service would be among the remaining top 10 spots for me.
I've seen every Ghibli film except the Earthsea film, and I'd say the best are Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, Princess Kaguya, and Totoro.
That said, I've liked pretty much every film they've made except Kiki's Delivery Service (I found it a bit dull) and Howl's Moving Castle (it just didn't work for me). They're pretty much all worth watching at least once.
Howl's Moving Castle really falls apart at the end, and it's a shame.
Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind and Castle in the Sky are the most similar in feeling to Princess Mononoke. High fantasy, adventure, against all odds. (This is my favorite batch of Ghibli / Miyazaki / Takahata films.)
Spirited Away is an otherworldly coming of age treasure that cannot be missed. Totoro and Kiki's Delivery Service feel similar. Whisper of the Heart is this too, just aimed a little older. (And if you like that, check out Your Name by Shinkai or Wolf Children by Hosoda - not Ghibli films, but very deserving of a watch if you like this sort of film.)
Grave of the Fireflies is a very poignant anti-war film.
FWIW, I bought the old Miramax domain name for Princess Mononoke and kept the website online [1]. It's one of my favorite films. I wish Miyazaki made more films like Mononoke and Nausicaa - they're sublime.
[1] http://princess-mononoke.com
I prefer some of the others:
Spirited Away, Ponyo, Howl’s Moving Castle, and Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind.
I don’t know that I view movies as “best”, since those are all quite different stories.
The thing that gets me about Spirited Away (and most Ghibli films) is the sense of being transported.
The characters at the end are no longer in a place where they can go back to “the way things were” but somehow it’s okay. So there is this pain but in the end it’s ultimately cathartic and you feel joy and hope.
I've long pondered building exactly this, an anti-recommendation engine. You'd go through and mark some favorite films or genres, and it'd come back with something great but totally unlike your usual picks.
Foreign flicks not your thing? Try Parasite.
You don't remember what it's like to be an awkward pre-teen? Eighth Grade will remind you.
Not a big action movie person? Maybe you need to watch Die Hard.
Kids movies are just for kids? Spirited Away!
You can't connect with female protagonists? You've got to see The Invisible Man.
Don't find food interesting? Try Tampopo.
Sick of movies which try to make a statement and fall flat? Promising Young Woman.
Most dramas feel too contrived? Marriage Story.
Musicals and plays aren't really your thing? Hamilton.
Nausicaa is the go to movie for me these days even though I love Spirited Away and all the other movies.
interesting, these are more 'western' than the ghibli catalog as a whole, which does have some western stories. it almost seems like they were looking for less familiar material, much like i've been doing for the past number of years by watching more 'eastern' (chinese/japanese/korean) content. still, looks like i have some watching to do!
as a sidenote, i'm happy vulture put "spirited away" and "my neighbor totoro" at the top of their ghibli rankings[0]. these two films are amazing. i wouldn't have ranked "castle in the sky" at 3, but do agree that "grave of the fireflies" and "princess kaguya" should rank highly. "howl's movie castle" or "ponyo" would probably be #5 for me. "arrietty" would be last, despite me not having seen 5 of the films yet.
[0]: https://www.vulture.com/article/best-studio-ghibli-films-ranked.html
The Doors, love the look of the film and always enjoy kicking back and listening to the music
Labyrinth, with the kids now (and Spirited away and Totoro)
David Lynch films
American Splendor, becomes more relevant with age.
It’s not a movie for deep plot, and it’s lacking in writing, which would normally ruin a movie for me. But gosh, the setting. It feels lived in. The future — its culture, its fashion, its transportation — it all feels bewildering in a way that the real future would be to us. It doesn’t bother to explain any of it either, because everyone in the future knows it. The audience is stuck there with Leeloo, having learned the word “multipass”.
In a way it was a lot like my first time watching Spirited Away (a far better film) knowing next to nothing about Japanese culture. Everything about it seemed new and fantastical and like a wholly new setting. I can’t recapture that feeling now that I know a lot more Japanese culture, but The Fifth Element can retain that sense of a real but truly alien place and culture.
This was my experience when I watched and rewatched the anime film Spirited Away over the years. It is a fantastic film, to be sure, but I hadn't realized how much he borrowed from the existing culture of Japan until I learned more about Japanese religion and culture generally. It wasn't wholly invented myth, as it appeared to me as an American child.
There's a lot of good anime without fanservice if you find that sort of stuff icky, in all genres too.
* The Promised Neverland (Thriller / Shonen)
* Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle (Comedy)
* Spirited Away (And really, virtually everything by Miyazaki has no fanservice)
* Oddtaxi (Film Noir / Zootopia world)
* Little Witch Academia (Iyashikei / Healing genre / School)
* Full Metal Alchemist (Battle / Epic Journey anime)
* Fate / Zero (while the Fate/series in general has fanservice and/or harem tropes, Fate/Zero has none)
* Your Lie in April (Romance / Drama)
I know some people just find the fanservice scenes icky, so I try to keep an eye out for the fanservice-free shows for them.
There are also some kinds of nudity which are more artistic in nature rather than fanservice. I think Spice and Wolf handled that sort of thing well for example: Holo's occasional nudity is somewhat representative of her Wolf Goddess form / Pagan diety background, and I don't think it was really used too much for what most would call fanservice (and certainly fit the setting of "Pagan Diety travels across Europe with Merchant").
Nah.
I'd push things like Spirited Away or Tokyo Godfathers first, as far as anime-movies go actually.
EoE is good for the Evangelion fans. But honestly, Tokyo Godfathers hit me way harder.
EoE probably doesn't even hit my top 5 list of anime movies.
#1: Spirited Away
#2: Tokyo Godfathers
#3: Girl who Leapt through Time
#4: Summer Wars
#5: "Voices of a Distant Star" for #5? Hmm, or maybe "Time of Eve" ?? A lot of things I wanna fit in here but not EoE yet.
Not even getting to the "classics" like Akira, Eden of the East, Ghost in a Shell or whatever. These above movies have some mainstream appeal but still manage to hit that thoughtful analysis and depth. I'd still put something like Ghost in a Shell or "Your Name" above EoE...
There are also 'kid anime movies' like Patema Inverted that really were excellent and deserve recognition.
EoE is niche and fine for Evangelion fans though. Absolutely beautiful, and some of the best fight scenes I've ever seen. But you gotta see some of the __good anime movies__ out there. They all stand above EoE IMO.
So much agree. Naussica and Toroto capture the highest expressions of depth and delight. Though Spirited Away speaks to me more and more...there is a tenderness about the human condition in that film, which becomes a call to courage.
Movies: - 12 angry men - Whiplash - Prestige - American Beauty - The Thing - V for Vendetta - The Grand Budapest Hotel - Gone Girl - Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri - Parasite - ... Tarantino or Scorsese movies
Anime: - Howl's Moving Castle - Spirited Away
Not a movie but both great series: - Love, Death & Robots - Black Mirror
I try to like it, but I don't. It drags out. I really enjoyed the first two seasons of JoJo, but the others feel like they're stretching a 4 episode story across 40 episodes.
Modern anime feels a little like Clash of Clans. It's highly commercialized. Instead of making you feel good, it gives you just enough of a feel good dose and hides the rest, so you'd face enough withdrawal to consume more.
It works for something to watch during lunch break, when I just want something mindless to clear my brain and not something philosophical like Loki.
Anime movies are good but rare. I really enjoyed Spirited Away and The Wind Rises.
> "I feel that Pixar’s mastery of storytelling is overrated."
me too. the incredibles was pixar's high point of storytelling imho. of the first six films, i liked the toy stories the least. a bug's life, monsters, inc., finding nemo to the incredibles was like a crescendo of animation, reaching a satisfying zenith of art. cars, which came next, was ok (but unoriginal for storytelling, the characters were mostly great!), but then ratatouille through inside out were all groping for relevance while nakedly harvesting their reputation. of the last 8 movies, only coco has been worth watching so far (i haven't seen the good dinosaur or soul yet). so perhaps a quarter of their 23 films have been good enough to watch again for me; contrast that with the studio ghibli collection, nearly all of which are imminently re-watchable (spirited away is an absolute masterpiece).
This made me very emotional. It reminded me of one of my favorite movies, Spirited Away, which also has an incredibly emotional train scene. Thank you for sharing.
> Anime is not the dominant form of media in Japan, and is largely targeted at a relatively narrow age band. Outside of the main target demographic, you're not going to get a lot of familiarity with anything but the very largest show.
The top two highest grossing films in Japan are both anime; Spirited Away and Demon Slayer. Titanic follows at a distant third. Forth is Frozen, which you could argue is basically anime.
I live in Japan, and most anime is not really my thing, but its huge and definitely mainstream here.
>Anime is not the dominant form of media in Japan, and is largely targeted at a relatively narrow age band
But it seems very popular, out of the top ten highest grossing films in Japan, 5 are anime (Spirited Away, Demon Slayer, Your Name, Princess Mononoke, Howl's Moving Castle), and the top two are Spirited Away and Demon Slayer.
In North America's top ten you will only find one animated feature, Incredibles 2, and it is at position ten.
The Miyazaki films from Studio Ghibli would absolutely be well-recognized; Spirited Away remains the highest-grossing film in Japan. (I was sort of ignoring films in my analysis.)
For me, watching "Spirited Away"[1] was my mind blowing introduction to beautiful Japanese animation and Hayao Miyazaki/Studio Ghibli in particular.
As a child I used to watch a lot of the Japanese Robot related animations. A precursor to Transformers I guess. I also remember 'Kimba, the White Lion' which later got reincarnated as Disney's Lion King. But nothing held a candle to the beautiful animation of Spirited Away.
[1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0245429/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
I saw this as a teenager and never have I sobbed as hard as I did watching a movie. It was devastating and I too will never watch it again, even though it's a beautiful movie.
In contrast, I must have watched "Spirited Away" at least 50 times and have gifted it as present to the young ones in my extended family. Not only is the animation compelling but so is the story, the characters and the soundtrack. It's a message about resilience and adaptability and encompasses the spiritual and the fantastical.
A recent, fairly famous anime movie that I would recommend is Kimi No Nawa/Your Name. Very emotional, and just a great movie all around. I would also recommend any Studio Ghibli movie, particularly Spirited Away. If you want to watch some great artistic style anime series, watch any of Shinichiro Watanabe's shows, or if you're into psychological stories, watch Death Note.
There really is something for everyone if you look hard enough. There is a reason anime is so popular.
I miss Roger Ebert.
I honestly watch fewer films since his death.
Maybe this list will change that.
Also "Spirited Away" is on the list but doesn't seem to be included with prime.
I have most of the soundtracks ripped to MP3 over many years. Some of the standouts I prefer, in no particular order: Princes Mononoke, Spirited Away, Porto Rosso, Howls Moving Castle.
Some of the newer movies I haven’t had a chance to really sit down and listen to. This was from the era when I was in school and needed study music.
Not sure about that. I remember that in the late '90s - early 2000s people were really hyped up about the animation movies of that era, and rightly so, we're talking about the early Pixar movies, Miyazaki's "Princess Mononoke" and "Spirited Away", Satoshi Kon's "Paranoia Agent" and "Perfect Blue" or about "Cowboy Bebop", people knew that they were contemporary with really, really great animation movies/series. Almost 20 years have passed since then and nothing similar is being done anymore, at least not in the mainstream.
I saw Spirited Away on DVD, after digging up an old DVD player in a junk pile. I loved the first half, but didn't enjoy the second half where it started skipping and eventually stopped entirely -- the pauses and stutters set a very different tone than the languid animation, and I had hoped for more resolution for the characters.
It's hard to know how to review the experience. I was annoyed to go through all of the special logistics to watch half a film. But then, Miyazaki says in the article that the point of life is not to be happy, so maybe I had the intended experience and failed to appreciate it?
I don't buy this article's premise (that there is too much recycled, unoriginal content).
You could make this same argument for all forms of art (music, TV, theater). They can all be explained the same way: the barrier for entry has decreased.
Anyone can upload music to Soundcloud or a video to Youtube. Now there are whole albums/TV series/movies being produced on these content networks as a result of a kind of indie discovery that never existed before. This is wonderful!
The benefit of all of that discovery is the same drawback: that anyone (good or bad) can enter the market. That means in order to capture the "average" audience you have to water down and dilute what is popular to appease everyone. Most pop music is unmemorable. Most pop movies are unmemorable. BUT, they are good enough to capture a wide enough audience to convince them to pay for it.
That doesn't mean there isn't great film to be found. Or music. It just requires a bit more discovery than your local pop Top 40 radio station or whatever they're peddling in the box office.
There have been so many great films in the last 20 years with original stories. Here's a bunch that I just rattled off the top of my head without much thought:
Boyhood, Interstellar, Inception, Spirited Away, Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind, Wall-E, The Intouchables (now called The Upside), Pan's Labyrinth, No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood, Amelie, Slumdog Millionaire
It's funny you should mention Toy Story. Pixar's John Lasseter is well known to be a friend of Miyazaki. Studio Ghibli even released a DVD of the home movie visit to America titled Thank You, Mr. Lasseter.
http://www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/lasseter/
I remember seeing once that Pixar had a life size Cat-bus from Miyazaki's Totoro installed in their studios.
The original home movie DVD release of Spirited Away was also introduced by Lasster.
Huh, and all this time I thought Spirited Away was the first one—which would also fit with the massive difference in style from the earlier films.
It means, though, that their flirtations with CGI go back full two decades to right after the first Toy Story.
Spirited away is a complicated film. Most children would (fortunately) not understand the really dark and creepy hidden subtext.
Oh man, you have got to watch some Studio Ghibli. Try Spirited Away or Howl's Moving Castle.
(edit: based on another of your comments you seem to be fully aware that there is great non-sexist non-objectifying anime out there, so your "almost any" comment is confusing. I don't know much about anime, but I've been watching some of the highest-recommended and rated films and they've all been great about this in my opinion.)
Studio Ghibli movies shaped my childhood and I loved them. (My parents didn't even realise they were Anime until later, they assumed it was from Disney because they were so well made) Spirited Away was a favorite family movie for a long time.
I think Laputa - Castle in the Sky will remain my all-time favorite and Princess Mononoke second.
Apart from the fun plot-line, the cultural awareness, and the entertainment value -- the animation work is great (skeletons don't walk like live humans, for instance).
[spoilers]
I would not say it's our favorite Pixar movie. My two-year old was fascinated (her first movie theater experience). My eight-year old was shaken by Frozen and by Inside Out, no this movie. It felt a bit derivative from Spirited Away in theme and format, but less transporting. I think Miguel should have been a bit older so he could have a love interest and feel conflicted about returning to the land of the living; maybe Pixar is already too Disney-fied.
I enjoy Ghiblis movies, and enjoyed Pom Poko, but I wouldn't put it in the same class as Spirited Away, maybe Porco Rosso (but I prefer Porco Rosso myself).
> it deals with Japanese stories and folklore that are foreign to the general western audience.
That is also true of Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, My Neighbour Totoro... a lot of other Ghibli productions that did get lots of exposure.
I think the issue with that particular movie is that (IIRC) is a bit heavy on the ecological agenda, overall is not great (funny here and there though) and I don't think it was ever dubbed. The subtitles I've seen floating around are pretty terrible.
Someone should put together a Takahata retrospective with good subtitles.
> It's ridiculous movies don't tell women stories, nor show women characters; just "love interest", "plot device", etc. Even in fantasy a female lead is surrounded by a male ensemble or is a proto-male.
Looking at the Disney films made in the past decade, it appears female protagonist leads are more prevalent (e.g. Moana, Brave, Frozen, Spirited Away, etc.)
> All conflict originates from sex or violence.
What about The Big Short? No sex or violence there. Or what about Spirited Away? I'm sure there's some ostensible violence here and there, but the conflict in that film I think comes from things being out of place, not from overt danger.
Sex and violence are overrepresented in media because they are easy. A writer who has drank too much coffee and is out of ideas for the 10th day in a row can put some sex or violence up without thinking much and get a reaction. That doesn't mean these things are the only source of conflict in the world, or in storytelling. Just the easiest.
As someone who's seen almost all Ghibli movies, I can tell you that Miyazaki is not averse to the grotesque. Most who have seen Spirited Away probably remember it as a wonderful and positive film, but when it was showed at my younger sister's 10th birthday party, most of the children were terrified, based purely on the animated monsters.
There are creatures more disturbing in his movies than that zombie. The difference is the deep human empathy that goes into their creation.
IIRC, almost every frame in Ghibli movies is drawn by hand, so to see an AI created zombie that (in his view) mimics disabilities suffered by his friend in order to achieve a creepy effect, how could he not find it disgusting?
>I think this is simply reflective off Miyazaki's view of what animations should be represented at all
> He's not a fan of the grotesque, creepy, or disquieting.
Studio Ghibli has produced lots of work that's grotesque and disquieting. He's not against representing them.
Spirited Away and Grave of the Fireflies come to mind as films that show the grotesque in a way that there's a strong human spirit endowed in the animation.
Nice integration of Joe Hisaishi's music in the tribute. The Spirited Away score gives you a feeling of peace right from the beginning but also the sense that something great is on the way. It seems to me people sometimes focus on the animation and underestimate how important the film scores have been to Miyazaki's work.
The other peerless Miyazaki's are Princess Mononoke (the only other work with as much depth as Spirited Away) and My Neighbour Totoro (avowedly a children's film). Nearly all the others are also very very good.
And if that's your only exposure to anime then you should at the very least checkout Satoshi Kon's masterpiece Paprika.
My only exposure to anime is his films (friend suggested them, first I ignored the recommendation because they were "for kids" and some time later I watched "Spirited away" by luck and you know the rest of the story) and want to explore more, I thought maybe you could have some suggestions from your other favorites?
A bit of a digression, but...I strongly dislike dubbing and simply cannot enjoy a dubbed drama or film.
First, you have the distracting mismatch between the actor's mouth movements and the dubbed dialogue.
Second, the way an actor speaks in their native language is an intrinsic part of their performance. A dubbed performance will be different, but can never match the original (unless we're talking about a poorly acted, poor quality production).
To give an example, the Scandinavian series The Bridge has won great praise for the performance of its lead (Sofia Helin). This has been a big international hit (in the UK it was shown subtitled). Can a dubbing actor really ever inhabit a character in the same way as the original performer? (Don't forget the dubbing actor also sits in a room performing the dub, not on location like the original actors).
There is one scenario where I understand dubbing is necessary: children's films. But even here, you can notice a difference. When Disney dubbed the Japanese animated movie Spirited Away, they did a very good job with the American voice actors. However, if you listen to the original Japanese soundtrack, you come away with a different impression of the film because the Japanese language has a very different tone and inflection to English.
Unlike bugs, you are not triaging all products on Amazon together. If I search for a certain type of USB cable, I expect to see 5 star products. I'm not disturbed that Spirited Away is also rated 5 stars. I'm not confused and decide to buy a great film instead of a cable.
"Spirited Away" is, perhaps, my favorite movie. It's such a pleasant, fun, engrossing, and thought-provoking experience every time I watch it.
Spirited away is probably one of the most creative, beautiful films I've ever seen. Part of what makes it so rewarding are the fantastic landscapes it paints and the amazing adventure it portrays, but there's also an entire other level of symbolism in it that you don't have to know to thoroughly enjoy it.
http://www.unomaha.edu/jrf/Vol8No2/boydShinto.htm
It makes me deeply happy to see this here. Miyazaki's mind is truly unique (and by extension most Ghibli films too), nothing else quite compares (and as the author points out, certainly not Disney & co. despite being Ghibli's distributors in the West). I've introduced many people to Ghibli, a lot of whom would have never even considered watching an animated film (even less so a foreign one), and most came away truly touched.
Miyazaki is anti-war, but he's also extremely pro-ecology as is obvious in most of his films (Nausicaa is an obvious one, but perhaps more obvious would be Pom Poko or Totoro). Broadly speaking, he advocates balance in all its forms. A lot of his main protagonists are strong female characters, and not the "overly girly unicorn princess with magical powers" kind. Violence, like greed, is a disease as opposed to an end (in fact those two concepts are often expressed together in his films, e.g. Spirited Away).
But maybe the best accomplishment in most, if not all, of Miyazaki's work, is his ability to capture the interest and the imagination of the viewers without resorting to cheesy gimmicks, gratuitous violence or sexual innuendos, which seem to be the go-to for a lot of cinema (animation and otherwise, Western and Eastern).
I wasted time rating about 60 movies - not a large data set mind you - and it predicted I would rate Spirited Away as a 1 star. I imagine because I rated most other "Animated" and "Adventure" movies prior to it relatively poorly.
Spirited Away has been my favorite movie since I was a child. So I had a slight chuckle about the prediction. :)
That's expected behavior for how the network was trained, so it's not meant as criticism.
I'd love to play with neural networks more but lack the creativity to apply them to something interesting...and what I'm really interested in training them on is far beyond my abilities.
I enjoy watching various anime but am by no means into Japanese culture, nor the American culture that is into Japanese culture. However, when I was first introduced to anime by a friend (minus Spirited Away) which was Naruto, I was introduced to the English-subbed versions even though English dubs were available. After watching a few episodes of listening to Japanese and reading the subs, I thought it would be a good idea to skip the effort of reading and watch the English dubbed version instead.
That was a horrible experience. The English dubbed voices seemed to lack passion or say things in the wrong tones (or just be monotone!). Blue Gender immediately comes to mind as another painful English dub experience.
So, that is how my teenage self wound up pirating a lot of anime: because the fansubbing was extremely good and I could pick up on Japanese vocal intonation. I could actually tell what was a joke, and what was anger, instead of wondering when someone would have feelings at all in their English monotone!
In the case of Ergo Proxy, the additional notes in the fansubbing really helped understand the bigger dialogue. Without it I probably would not have held that particular show in has high of a regard.
The only consistent exception to the poor English dubs has been Miyazaki. Heck, Liam Neeson was a voice in Ponyo!
just watched princess mononoke last night. =)
> Definitely agreed, if you've got kids Totoro and Spirited Away are good excuses to become introduced to Miyazaki's work.
totoro and spirited away are my two favorite miyazaki movies. not that you're necessarily implying it, but these are not simply kid's cartoons. like a great poem, they're the kind of movie that has multiple layers of meaning and connects with people of all ages.
and i'd recommend watching them in the original japanese, with subtitles if you don't understand japanese (i don't). you lose the essential asianness & the original emotional nuance of the dialog when it's dubbed, just imho.
The Studio Ghibli film Spirited Away (2001) overtook Titanic and is still the highest grossing film in Japan.[1] Another Ghibli film, Howl's Moving Castle, also passed Mononoke on that list.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films_in_Japan
The first Miyazaki film I watched was Spirited away. The moment I saw it I became a life long fan of his work.
I've been to the museum in Mitaka twice, seen all his movies and despite pushing 35, I'm just as amazed and gleeful watching his work today with my three year old.
I can't think of any artist that had a greater influence on me. Much love.
I disagree that Ghibli films are not as pretty as Pixar or Disney. In my (arguably subjective) eyes Ghibli animation seems much more aesthetically pleasing and "warmer-feeling" than CGI. And on a second notice, although I have huge respect for the artists that are involved in the production of Pixar films, it deeply saddens me to see that traditional animation seems like a second-class citizen in modern-day Hollywood. It's been years since I've last watched a high-profile traditionally animated film from western studios. And it's not just the style, I think that thematically and character-wise Pixar et al. films feel so generic when compared to eg. Nausicaa or Spirited Away or even Whisper of the Heart. And it's not only studio Ghibli, it always seemed to me that Japanese animators try to innovate a bit more thematically than their western counterparts. See for example the movies of Sathoshi Kon (like Paprika, or Millenium Actress). They have such a unique adult-oriented perspective on animated storytelling that is unlike anything Pixar has put out.
>> They also provide good insight into Japanese culture.
After I watched Spirited Away, I went online and found a treasure trove of information about a lot of the underlying cultural themes I obviously missed - but it was well worth it to understand all the layers of the story.
Here's a few of the resources I found:
http://www.sparknotes.com/film/spiritedaway/themes.html
http://www.flixist.com/deep-analysis-spirited-away-207051.phtml
https://circleofmeditation.wordpress.com/2011/04/18/spirited-away/
Definitely agreed, if you've got kids Totoro and Spirited Away are good excuses to become introduced to Miyazaki's work.
If you like the anime film of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, it's worth checking out the manga drawn by Miyazaki between 1981 to 1994, over a thousand beautiful B&W pages [1]
It is a very sophisticated work that stands on its own and really deserves more attention. He is a very talented illustrator and painter.
[1] http://www.amazon.com/Nausicaä-Valley-Wind-Box-Set/dp/1421550644/
Spirited away is one of (if not the) my favorite movies of all time. It may appear at times a bit weird to western eyes, but once you get past that it's blindingly beautiful animation with a sad and happy story. If you haven't seen it - I envy you :)
You totally can, with basically the same calls!
e.g. to find the film Triplets of Belleville: http://api.hunch.com/api/v1/get-results/?name=triplets%20of%20belleville&topic_ids=list_movie
id is hn_3575764, so then we can get movie recommendations for someone who likes Triplets of Belleville: http://api.hunch.com/api/v1/get-recommendations/?likes=hn_3575764&topic_ids=list_movie&limit=5&minimal=t
Seems pretty reasonable: Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, and Dr. Strangelove
What specifically do you think is missing? Remember, it's only the 20 most popular films in a given year.
Oldboy (Korea), City of God (Brazil), Pan's Labyrinth (Mexico), and Spirited Away (Japan) are all on those, and that's not an exhaustive list.
I never really liked Nausicaä, but I loved Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle and Ponyo.
Which Dune are you referring to? Film, Mini-Series, original or extended?
Yeah, Princess Mononoke is really a lovely film. I thought when Spirited Away came out and became popular that people would naturally go back and check out Mononoke, but it didn't happen that much. Definitely worth a watch.
As for Avatar -
My two biggest complaints:
1. It paints it as black and white, good vs. evil. This is such a common source of human misery and brainwashing that I thought we'd started to move past in cinema. Every leader worth anything tries to play the underdog card. Ask yourself about every cause you sincerely respect and believe in - do any of your leaders not paint it as you vs. the world? The New York Yankees are the only organization I can think of that don't try to play the underdog external evil enemies card. All the world religions do, all political parties do, all nations do, and so on.
2. My housemate had a great quote - he said, "They completed de-humanized the humans before doing all the violence to them." It's quite right - the evil military industrial capitalist marines have no family members, loved ones, passions, or good about them. They exist to be eaten by dinosaurs, shot by arrows, crushed, beaten, and shredded. There's no marine who signed on for a security job, got a little freaked out what's happening, and died due to the complex violent decisions of the leaders. Nope, all the marines are not even human or worth sympathizing with at all - destroy the expoiters, make violence on them, and they deserve all the hells we can visit upon them.
When you take "we're completely good and they're completely evil" and mix it with "our enemies aren't even human", you get a recipe for horrible atrocities. I watched a documentary of what the Imperial Japanese Army soldiers was thinking at Nanking. They regarded their cause as God's work, and their Chinese enemies as not human.
Never mind the specific politics. Do we really want our epic, landmark art to assert that there is in fact pure good, pure evil, and the people with different views than us are pure evil and aren't even human? I kept trying to think of if I had a kid, how I'd talk to him or her after watching that to understand that the "clear good and evil" thinking leads to very bad places.
Highly recommended mindfuck films from across the globe:
El Método/The Method (Spain): http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0427582/
15 Park Avenue (India): http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0449159/
Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi/Spirited Away (Japan/Animation): http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0245429/
Moustache, La (France): http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0428856/
Monday (Japan): http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0239655/
Shutter (Thai/Horror): http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0440803/
Gaau ji/Dumplings (Hong Kong): http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0472458/