Getting into Miyazaki (not literally, gross)

[Lightknight]

So I'm not a particularly big fan of anime. In all honesty, there are only three series that I saw when I was younger that I still would say I enjoy: Rurouni Kenshin (and the first OAV), Trigun and (I'm gonna get some stick for this) the first Hellsing. That said, I've heard so much good about Hayao Miyazaki's work that I want to check it out.

I'm starting with Spirited Away, and I just wanted to ask for some advice.

Sub or Dub? Generally speaking, I don't care which it is, unless I've heard one version before. A sudden change in voice actors is really unpleasant and damn near ruins everything, but in any case, I wanted to hear if anyone had any pressing reasons for picking one or the other.


What are some other Miyazaki movies that I should check out after Spirited Away?

Thanks!

Seeing as cartoons are always dubbed anyways since there's no real cartoon character actually talking as opposed to a real-life actor's mouth moving, I would always recommend going dubbed with animated films unless one is particularly poorly done. Spirited away has been well dubbed.

After that, I STRONGLY recommend Howl's Moving Castle.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Well I said storywriter, which since I'm an idiot assumed people would equate to...urgh, forget it.

Okay, what I meant was he's not very good at crafting complete plotlines with satisfying endings, they usually either turn out to be a red herring, or they resolve every single thing in a very cheap way.

He is a pretty damn good character and dialogue writer though, he's very good at that "adorable funny" that even if he you don't laugh, it's still easy to like it. But yeah, otherwise I agree with you. he's absolutely brillant at creating memorable scenes, the problem though, I find, is it seems sort of limited by making a kids movie, and thus have to make it simple. I know he wants to make movies for kids, and the movies are pretty much what he intended them to be, but eh, I just kind of feel it's a shame.

Take Mononoke for example, it seems a bit like he went out of his way to be completly show that it was an ending that was good for everyone. Leaving it a little more bleak and still leaving up some conflicts, or stuff that doesn't end completly happy for everyone, would be a stronger ending. The movie itself has a very serious and rather (for a kids movie anyway) grim tone. The protagonist is dying, he can't see his family ever again, the two sides of nature and humans hate eachothers guts, and both have good reason for doing so, and can't really see above their need for revenge, also his girlie is a complete fanatic who hates all humans, but the ending kind of makes all that stuff seem pointless, since everything got resolved anyway, and it just seemed everyone went "eh, let's just be nice now", while they had good reasons to be assholes before.

He's still making probably the best animated movies, well, ever, so I still find him really great, it's just that a higher level is actually within reach, which makes me kind of frustrated.

Though maybe I'm just a cruel bastard who just wants children to cry watching movies and doesn't get the concept of charm at all, so that's also a possibility.

I don't know if that has to do with it being a kids movie though. To take Mononoke again... That movie is pretty violent. You have people getting their heads and arms lopped off by arrows, people getting shot, and a scene where a bunch of creepy silhouetted apes talk about wanting to eat Ashitaka. Now as you said it has more of a grim tone, but even Spirited Away is filled with loads of child-unfriendly images.

I get what you mean about Mononoke's ending, but at the same time its made quite clear that the forrest will never go back to the primordial force it once was, and San states that she'll never forgive the humans for what they've done. It's less of a 'let's be friends now' and more of 'let's not blindly hate eachother'.

And the one thing I always take away from that movie is not even the slightly frustrating ending, but Moro's ending. Throughout the movie there's this sense of how bestial nature is, that eventhough it's pure and even somewhat magical, it lacks any sympathy, even for its own offspring. Yet in the end Moro uses her last bit of strength to save her human daughter, instead of choosing vengeance, eventhough the latter would've saved the forrest. It's fucking brilliant.

 

[GloatingSwine]

I've only seen Howl's Moving Castle recently enough to have any opinion, so I'm gonna talk about that.

*ahem*

What the fuck? I spent two hours watching this, and I still didn't know what the fuck was going on. Most movies leave me with some feeling, be it bored, exhilarated, mystified or just plain confused. Howl's didn't hit any of these marks, it hit blank. Seriously, blank. I had no idea afterwards what the main theme might be (other than that war is bad? Yeah we figured that around the Normandy landing (sorry)), what the motivations of the main characters might be, or what the fuck was going on in the first place.

Howl's Moving Castle is perfectly good until it runs into the third act like a brick wall. This is, essentially, because this is the point where it deviates enormously from the original book. There are elements removed from the book which aren't really replaced with anything. Which is why the story doesn't go anywhere, the original place it was supposed to go doesn't exist any more.

Book spoilers:

Spoiler

Basic rundown: The black segment on Howl's dial leads to his real home, they go there, Sophie is massively confused by everything she sees because Howl is actually from mid-1980s Wales, the Witch of the Wastes follows them, seduces Howl by pretending to be a schoolteacher because she's trying to steal his head to stitch into her perfect new human to use as a puppet to rule the kingdom, Sophie assumes that the Witch has kidnapped the schoolteacher and chases her and Howl to the Witch's fortress, defeats the Witch and uses her own magic, which she had been gradually becoming aware of, to free Howl and Calcifer from their contract without killing either of them. (this all works a lot better than you would think).

Sophie can bring objects to life by talking to them, this is why her hats are so popular, they are magical items which can literally alter the course of people's entire lives, her own magic is partly responsible for the curse she was under, because the world of Ingary runs according to the laws of Narrative Causality (like the Discworld), Sophie assumed that as the eldest daughter she was simply inevitably going to lead a dull life whilst her younger sisters went out to make their fortunes in the world (because in a world ruled by fairytale tropes the youngest gets to have all the fun).

However, all of that wasn't in the movie and there wasn't really anything there to replace it.

 

[Auron225]

I've only ever seen subbed versions of his stuff so I can't speak for the dubs.

As for the films themselves, I consider most of them masterpieces. I would recommend ones I find suitable given your choice in anime series, but I haven't seen any of the 3 you listed so all I can really do is mention my favourites I guess.

- Princess Mononoke; Still considered a masterpiece by many, it's one of my favourite movies of all time. Characters and setting are wonderful and the story is very touching. I find the protagonist (Ashitaka) inspiring.

- Laputa: Castle in the Sky; I got a friend of mine got into anime thanks to this movie. Again, very compelling characters, decent plot and nice action.

- Naussica of the Valley of the Wind; Another inspiring protagonist and a very interesting setting.

- Porco Rosso; Very entertaining and refreshing for a story involving transformation, with a nice helping of classiness.

- Kiki's Delivery Service; Don't let the look fool you, this one deals with heavy issues (like depression) on the way and has some golden lines.

- Howl's Moving Castle; I enjoyed it a lot, but it can be a bit harder to follow towards the end. Still, interesting characters!

Basically, the characters are one of the main things I love about Miyazaki's movies. If you don't feel the same way, you'll likely care a lot less for them.

EDIT:

But I loved how...

Spoiler

...Sophie is never able to break her curse, but that it doesn't matter, because in the end the curse only made her as old as she felt herself.

...Holy...shit. You know, I've seen that movie at least three times, and I've always hypothesized at how the curse worked but never found a description that fit. I'm not normally this slow but my mind has been blown, and all of a sudden I have a new thing to appreciate about that movie. This is why I love his work! I know he didn't write it, but I mean he portrayed it well!

 

[Ailyth]

Almost all of his works i've quite enjoyed the most being- castle in the sky or Howl's Moving Castle. The animation is amazing and the characters are quite likeable.