So… normally this time of year I do a big anniversary top 10 list. I had an idea to do the same this year, but real life concerns got in the way of the amount of work the particular concept would have taken. This won’t affect the weekly reviews, because I try to keep a buffer of those, but it does mean that I was sort of caught out when it came to the annual weirdness.
So, instead of a Top Ten, I thought I’d take a quick look at a few of the works of Hayao Miyazaki. I normally don’t comment on films, rather than series, though I have looked at movies in the past, and the Miyazaki films in particular seemed a little awkward to take looks at because… well, briefly put, they’re all great. These are seriously some pieces of work that live up to their hype, and it’s hard to imagine they won’t remain enduring cultural icons.
But, in the spirit of doing something different for the year mark of this blog, I thought I’d get my thoughts down on a few of them, reacting in a more extemporaneous fashion than I normally do, just to have my comments on record. And, unlike my normal reviews, this will be if not spoiler free than at least spoiler-lite, trying to avoid major spoilers for the two people who haven’t seen these films. That out of the way, let’s dive in.
Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind is not Miyazaki’s first film, but it is basically the one that acted as a precursor to Studio Ghibli and that shows off a lot of Miyazaki’s commonly-used themes. It’s a sort of fantasy/scifi adventure set in a future where, a thousand years after the calamitous destruction of industrial civilization in an event known as the Seven Days of Fire, the world is mostly covered in a jungle of fungi that make the air toxic to humans in their vicinity. The titular Nausicaa is the princess of a small nation, and is sort of an adventurer-ecologist, venturing into the forest to study its nature, but with a general tenor of deep respect for the giant insects that live there. She gets caught up in a war between rival nations that basically crash-lands in the Valley of the Wind, and the film goes from there.
Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind has, in my mind, one big problem. That problem is that it isn’t the manga version of Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. The film delivers its complete package with material from only the first two (ish) volumes of seven volumes of Manga. Because of this, even in the material that is covered, a lot of details are left out and characters and conflicts simplified for the shorter running time. It’s still a very good movie, but the manga is jawdropping in its fullness and depth. After experiencing the complete story in the manga, it’s hard to go back to the movie that only really scratches the surface.
Castle in the Sky
Castle in the Sky reinforces some of the major Miyazaki tropes: flying everywhere; kind young heroes in a world at war; settings that seem to be simultaneously some combination of futuristic, grounded period, and fantastical; princesses (okay, to be fair he only does that one three times, which for most things wouldn’t be a lot)… when combined with Nausicaa it gives you a general sense of the motifs that one particular great creator enjoys. It’s a story that follows what happens when a boy meets a girl who floats down from the sky, with connections to mysterious ancient magitech. She’s pursued by shadowy forces who want to use her power for evil and some fun air pirates, and for herself wants to ensure the power that’s been left to her doesn’t bring the world to ruin.
In some ways, Castle in the Sky may be my favorite of Miyazaki’s films. While I do think Miyazaki’s works are of objective quality, there are a lot of elements in his adventure stories that just push my buttons as a viewer, and Castle in the Sky really goes all in on these elements. Really, the only reason its in doubt is because I didn’t see this one until later, so I have some extra affection for older favorites. It’s probably not quite as intelligent as Nausicaa or Princess Mononoke or as unique as something like Spirited Away, but it absolutely has its own quality of charm. For what it is, I have a hard time imagining the matter being done better. People have tried to copy the Miyazaki-adventure formula, even skilled ones like Makoto Shinkai (otherwise another exemplary writer-director) in Children Who Chase Lost Voices, but they’ve never quite measured up to the originals. And the Miyazaki-adventure formula is at its absolute purest here.
My Neighbor Totoro
Totoro would seem to be the most iconic of Miyazaki’s creations. It’s the story of a family who move out to the countryside, the mother of which is ill and in the hospital, and the interactions between the two daughters of the family and some magical creatures they encounter.
As much as Totoro is the giant in the room, and as much as it deserves all the credit it gets for being an amazing kids’ film… I actually think it’s not the absolute strongest of the lot. Don’t get me wrong, as children’s’ films go, it’s one of the absolute best. It’s magical, whimsical, yet still intelligent and grounded. It does a lot with a little and really does leave a lasting impression… But, more than the other Miyazaki works, this is a children’s film more than it is a family film. To me, the distinction is that Totoro has less to offer older viewers – still a good deal, since it’s so skillfully executed, but less. Maybe it’s just the fact that I grew up on 80’s movies myself, but I’ve always believed that media aimed at children and families can afford to be heavier than a lot of people give it credit for. Most of Miyazaki’s works are, in my mind, in a sweet spot to stand with the animation greats of the West. Some you might want the viewers to be a little older at the floor, but like the best efforts of Disney or Don Bluth in the past there’s a vast power to them that isn’t afraid to get dark. These films are ones that are fun to come back to even as an adult and that leave a lasting impact (even if the occasional nightmare) on kids.
I don’t think Totoro is afraid of anything… I just don’t think that was its ambition, which means that when compared not to the general breadth of cinema (where it stands tall and proud above the competition) but to the specific illustrious company that is Miyazaki’s filmography, it doesn’t stand out as exceptional beyond its fellows.
Kiki’s Delivery Service
Kiki’s is another lighter film. This one is about a young witch who, being able to fly on her broom and having reached a certain age, must now go out into the world to establish herself as part of a coming-of-age tradition. Her world is a somewhat magical period setting, resembling something like the early 20th century in Europe if the World Wars and Great Depression never happened. Unlike Nausicaa or Castle in the Sky, there isn’t so much a dark edge to Kiki’s world… which is more fitting for a small story about a witch girl growing up by living on her own and, since she doesn’t have any other useful magic, starting up her delivery service, acting as a flying courier.
All the same, I don’t have the same caveats for Kiki that I do for Totoro. I think a big part of that is that Kiki is a coming of age story, aimed at an at least slightly older crowd as its core audience. She’s older and more independent and her magical aspects are deeply rooted in the world. Totoro, to its credit, captures the feeling of a child’s dreams, and makes the world feel big and mysterious and full of wonders. Kiki, instead, is concerned with people and human problems. It still looks at things from a more optimistic angle, seeing a world where people are basically good and kindness is rewarded, but it looks at that nice world with more mature eyes.
Princess Mononoke
Princess Mononoke is another of the adventure stories, this one much more on the period end. It begins when a village is attacked by a strange, black monster, and the hero who fights it off, Prince Ashitaka, is infected with a terrible curse. He’s forced to leave his home and goes on a journey to find where the monster came from, what drove it into that state, and if there’s any way to lift the curse that will otherwise slowly eat him away until he, too, becomes a monster. This brings him to Iron Town, an industrial city on the cutting edge of warfare and locked in battle with the animal spirits of the forest, including the adopted daughter of the wolf-god, a young woman named San (effectively the titular princess).
Princess Mononoke is basically what turned me towards anime. It was one of my favorite films as a child, and the themes and characters still hold up. I’ve said many times on this blog that I generally have an antipathy towards message fiction, but the Anti-war and environmental messaging in Miyazaki’s films, particularly Princess Mononoke, make them something of an exception, because while the message is certainly there it doesn’t eat the fiction for breakfast. Princess Mononoke, above all, is a story of characters who are all deeply studied and well-constructed, with layers and facets that can be understood, and the differing world views they have leading to them coming into conflict. While some characters are more antagonistic than others, I don’t think anyone is truly wicked the way that the villains in other stories, even other Miyazaki adventures like Castle in the Sky, can be. This creates a compelling and multi-layered conflict where you can feel for at least most of the entities involved, whether human or spirit.
Castle in the Sky may be marginally better at pushing my buttons, but if we include a sober measure of objective quality to the metrics for “favorite” (not something I usually do but the Ghibli films need tiebreakers), I think Mononoke still walks away with the win.
Spirited Away
The last one I’m going to look at for the time being, Spirited Away is the story of a girl, Chihiro, and her family who end up wandering in to festival grounds in the world of spirits without realizing it. When the parents are turned into pigs by eating the food there, Chihiro finds she must work at the spirits’ bathhouse if she wants to stay safe long enough to restore her parents and escape the spirit world.
Spirited Away has a lot of elements that are familiar to the other Miyazaki outings. It has the good-hearted girl lead with agency that you see in… really most of his films, but most closely in Kiki. It has the diverse and colorful cast of fun and weird characters you get out of Castle in the Sky. It has some of Totoro’s sense of wonder and some of Mononoke’s dark atmosphere.
What Spirited Away has to itself is the setting. The spirit bathhouse is one of the most visually creative and memorable settings you’re likely to encounter. It’s dark and threatening, but also oddly warm and inviting. Sometimes it feels like an indoor city, what with its chaos and scale, other times more like a cozy home with its visual warmth and the kindness of some (though far from all) of the folks Chihiro meets. The spirits as well are a panoply of unique and different designs, and they’re pretty much all memorable in their own ways. Because of this, Spirited Away is more of an experience. It still has a story and the story is good, but what it’s best at is transporting you to another world that blends the alien and the familiar, the beautiful and the grotesque. Out of all of the films I’ve looked at in this little special, this is the one that I think would probably benefit most from being seen on the big screen, because it does so much to transport you.
Closing
That’s far from all of Miyazaki’s work, much less the work of Studio Ghibli… but it’s sort of the thread that I have time and space for right now. If you haven’t seen any of these movies, do yourself a favor and find some time to watch them. I can even recommend the dubs (largely handled by Disney) which is not something I normally do. This may have been a forgone conclusion, but I hope at least some of my comments on these films were interesting enough.