Tomm Guycot
(he/him)
Saw Boy and the Heron yesterday (25 years after first seeing Totoro fwiw) and that is some movie. I am curious for your thoughts and interpretations, but this can also be a place to discuss Ghiblies in general.
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How Do You Live - the bucolic / horrifying world of Ghibli
- Thread starter Tomm Guycot
- Start date
I really enjoyed it, though I maybe don't put it up on the same level of my favorites from Miyazaki/Ghibli. I need to see it again; I'm not sure I completely made sense of The Boy and the Heron. I think maybe my attempting to make sense of things kind of stopped me from connecting with it emotionally. Whatever else i may think about it, it is an incredible piece of art.
On the list to see soon! Hopefully in theater, but I don't know if I want to listen to an English dub or wait so I can watch the sub.
Tomm Guycot
(he/him)
When I saw Spirited Away in theaters I didn't like it much because I felt it was too random and not cohesive. Stuff just happened for two hours. I did eventually soften to that movie.
...but in that light Heron is a hell of a drug, man. Frogs. So many birds.
.
Also the dub is fine. They hit all the Japanese names, and the repeat actors match the repeat actors in the Japanese. I am famously tolerant of dubs (esp Ghibli ones) but I can't imagine it would hurt your experience (vs. only seeing it on a small screen).
...but in that light Heron is a hell of a drug, man. Frogs. So many birds.
Kirbies
Also the dub is fine. They hit all the Japanese names, and the repeat actors match the repeat actors in the Japanese. I am famously tolerant of dubs (esp Ghibli ones) but I can't imagine it would hurt your experience (vs. only seeing it on a small screen).
Ludendorkk
(he/him)
Thought the film was astounding, another jewel in a crown already weighed heavy with a lifetime of heralded achievements. I'm not surprised it's shaping up to be a polarizing film, as it's easily the most difficult work of this career. Definitely think a lot people are trying too hard to "solve" the film at first blush to connect with it, going to be interesting how things shake out when people get multiple rewatches in them. A very interesting contrast with his now-penultimate film The Winds Rises; that was also a very nakedly person film for Miyazaki, but whereas that film is reserved and contemplative, How Do You Live is ragged and raw, unafraid to leave its themes on an emotionally liminal level or in dramatic bursts of symbolic flourish. Technically Ghibli is as bold and creative as ever, hard to pick a highlight but the parade of granny walking styles could probably be an animation film course unto itself. Joe Hisaishi turns in some of his best score work as well.
All around, a delight.
Theatres are showing both subs and dubs, for what it's worth
All around, a delight.
Theatres are showing both subs and dubs, for what it's worth
Violentvixen
(She/Her)
I was surprised to hear this since showing it subbed is often a big deal, but yeah, even my dinky town theater is! Only at noon every day so obviously not happening on a workday but maybe we'll try to see this over the weekend before my mom visits.
Also I just went to the new Ghibli Park while in Japan so when I have the time to get photos on a hosting site I can post about that here.
Tomm Guycot
(he/him)
How did everyone first encounter Ghibli?
I had a vague sense of them and recognized Totoro through osmosis a few months into my anime fandom but didn't get hands-on until somebody lent me the Nausicaa manga my Sr. year of high school. At that point I turned to internet searches and learned their filmography but the internet being what it was there was no way to see any of it.
That summer, I was working my job at Target, cleaning and sorting the health section, when I looked across the aisle and spied a new VHS display - Kiki's Delivery Service. It was purchased on my way out and watched immediately. It included a trailer for Castle in the Sky (which wouldn't release for half a decade) and I was in.
The next fall (College freshman if you're keeping score) my new girlfriend's Japanese friend brought over her family copy of Totoro - taped off Japanese TV!!!! - and she live-translated it for us.
From that point I've basically been waiting at the airport as each film arrives in the US.
I had a vague sense of them and recognized Totoro through osmosis a few months into my anime fandom but didn't get hands-on until somebody lent me the Nausicaa manga my Sr. year of high school. At that point I turned to internet searches and learned their filmography but the internet being what it was there was no way to see any of it.
That summer, I was working my job at Target, cleaning and sorting the health section, when I looked across the aisle and spied a new VHS display - Kiki's Delivery Service. It was purchased on my way out and watched immediately. It included a trailer for Castle in the Sky (which wouldn't release for half a decade) and I was in.
The next fall (College freshman if you're keeping score) my new girlfriend's Japanese friend brought over her family copy of Totoro - taped off Japanese TV!!!! - and she live-translated it for us.
From that point I've basically been waiting at the airport as each film arrives in the US.
Ludendorkk
(he/him)
Young enough that my first encounter is when Disney and John Lasseter gave Spirited Away the full court press and the subsequent Oscar buzz
When I was an undergrad, my university had a beloved student film society that showed movies every night of the quarter. One night a few years in, Spirited Away was programmed. I had noticed that people really liked it when it was released, and I thought that the trailer looked interesting, so I decided I’d give this anime thing a try, since so many of my fellow nerds seemed to like it. I loved Spirited Away, so I caught as many other Ghibli movies as I could when they showed up on the schedule, and I loved all of those, too.
I was taking Japanese in high school when Spirited Away came out in theaters -- don't remember if I was a freshman or sophomore but it was one of those -- and my teacher highly encouraged us to go see it, so my family did. My teacher also showed us Princess Mononoke in class in Japanese without subtitles; she attempted to do a live translation as we watched it. Which was... awkward.
Tomm Guycot
(he/him)
The theatrical run for Princess Mononoke was so small where I lived that the showing I went to was - completely coincidentally - my entire Japanese language class and our teacher. She was just trying to watch it with her husband and all the students were pestering her, it was as folks would say now, "cringe".
Watched VHS tapes of the Streamline releases of Kiki, Totoro, and Laputa as a kid. Parents made it a point to periodically exposed me to Japanese media/stories/culture as a kid and this was part of it.
Watched the Buena Vista Home Entertainment releases of a lot of the older Ghibli films like Grave of the Fireflies or Porco Rosso as they came out.
Dragged my parents to watch Princess Mononoke in tiny an arthouse theater in SF when it first came out domestically. Absolutely a seminal core memory.
Once torrenting became a thing in the early early 00s, started downloading rips of the more obscure films from their ovure like Ocean Waves (still a personal favorite) or Pompoko.
Dragged a bunch of friends in high school to see Spirited Away in theaters.
As a young anime and film fan, I heard a lot of buzz about "The Japanese Walt Disney" when Princess Mononoke came out in the states. I think I was in high school. Anyway, I asked for and got the DVD as a present - I think for Easter, weirdly enough - and while I was surprised at the violence, I thought it was pretty rad. Next up was Spirited Away's theater release. I remember not liking it as much, even though I like it more today than I did at the time. After that it was Laputa on DVD, Howl in theaters while I was in college, and then eventually my friend's bootleg complete collection to mop up the rest of them.
Y’all’s timelines are making me feel extra old.
When I was in high school I rented “Warriors of the Wind” from the local indie video rental shop. It was insanely pretty but didn’t make a lot of sense. It was another couple years before I learned exactly why that was, and started tracking down the uncut originals, often on VHS copied fansubs before they started trickling out via the Buena Vista releases.
Then I happened to be in Japan on a college exchange program with Mononoke released to theaters, and a couple of us convinced out host families to let us line up hours ahead (they were not gonna go for camping out). That was a hell of an experience. I only knew a bit of Japanese at that point but I got the gist and damn, it was incredible just to be there in that energy.
I remember hearing about Princess Mononoke online sometime in 2000/2001. It had to be 2001, because I drove to the video store to try find it to rent. I eventually found it, and loved it. I tried to hook up my dvd player to my vhs player and record it on to vhs to keep, but I learned that it won't let you do that.
From there I remained vaguely aware that there were more movies Miyazaki made that I had never seen until TCM aired a bunch of them in 2005-ish. Caught most of them then, and have collected the bulk on dvd/bluray in the years since.
From there I remained vaguely aware that there were more movies Miyazaki made that I had never seen until TCM aired a bunch of them in 2005-ish. Caught most of them then, and have collected the bulk on dvd/bluray in the years since.
I watched this film two nights ago. Sat on my thoughts/feelings for a few days to process everything. My big, spoiler-free takeaways:
- Not Miyazaki's best, but nowhere near his worst. Very middle-of-the-road film for him, which still equates to really good and quite interesting.
- This film paradoxically felt like both his most and least self-indulgent film in his oeuvre. It lacked a lot of the typical visual and thematic motifs that the guy tends to insert into his movies ad nauseum. But the pacing of the film was probably the slowest and least considerate of the audience of all his films to date. One of Hayao's greatest hallmarks and strengths of a storyteller is how he paces his films and how conscious he is of the attention span of his audience. And this movie seemed to care the least about that versus all his others, especially on account of how long the first act takes where there really isn't anything happening beyond a very thorough establishment of the characters/setting. I enjoyed the film from beginning to end, but I struggled to stay awake through the first act.
- I think a lot of the confusion here among people "trying to understand" the film and its themes is that the narrative structure of the film is very different from his usual works. There is very little exposition explaining what is going on, or in particular explaining the thoughts and feelings of the characters. The movie actually reminds me a whole lot of Yoshiyuki Tomino's general style, where the viewer has to infer those things by empathizing with characters, paying close attention to how characters react to events, and having to infer based on conversations as if you were a non-omniscient third person observer, rather than being spoonfed information in an inorganic manner that bumps up against the 4th wall.
- I also don't think the film's International name change did the audience any favors either. "The Boy and the Heron" doesn't really say anything about the film or prep the audience for what they're about to watch. "How Do You Live?" (The film's actual title) thematically informs just about every single moment of the film. Anyone going into the movie for the first time, or going into a rewatch, keep in mind that "How Do You Live?" is really the point of the movie - a rumination on the nature of life, and an invitation for the viewer to self-reflect on how one conducts themselves through their life's journey. The entire movie is a series of moral parables, suggesting to the viewer proper empathy and moral conduct. And just focus on how characters feel and react to what happens around them first and foremost, before trying to guess if this or that object/abstract visual is symbolic of some deeper meaning.
- I watched the film subbed. I'm sure the dub is competent. But it's intensely weird to know that Miyazaki's preference is to reject professional voice actors because they don't perform and talk like real people do, and yet the dubs are filled with some of the biggest hollywood talent you can find, inherently sounding very unnatural.
- There was a lot of visual quirks/oddities that looked very out of place for the Ghibli house-style, but were still interesting to look at. There was a lot of CGI use and off-model illustrations peppered throughout the film. On the one hand, it made the movie look and feel remarkably different in a way that was almost alienating versus Miyazaki's earlier directorial works where he was doing a majority of the keyframes himself and literally had a much more hands on approach to directing. So I'm very curious to know if these little flourishes were more due to him being physically more hands-off in his production (Studio Ghibli shut down a decade ago; most of the work on this film had to be outsourced) due to the realities of how different this production was carried out, or if the old man finally started willingly either trusting his subordinates more, or started personally experimenting with his own visual style.
- If you intend to watch this film in theaters, know that:
1) DO NOT watch it in IMAX. IMAX viewings will crop the sides off of the film in order to fit the Imax format "better".
2) If you want to watch this subbed, get off your butts and do it asap. All of the theaters around me, the subtitled showings were rapidly diminishing over the course of this week.
Tomm Guycot
(he/him)
I want to respond to WH's voice actor (dub) comment but it's gonna be spoilers.
I didn't hear any fault with the dub, and I shared your overall concern about it, but contextually it seems like the right call. Or at least, an informed call with intention.
Contextually I think there is a reason for the dubs. From my understanding, the Japanese version had several returning actors from past films (ex. Howl) - for the dub, they cast the same people who did those roles in the dub. I've never heard anybody complain about Christian Bale being Howl, and Mark Hamill did great as the villain in Laputa - thus leading to their roles in Heron.
Just like Miyazaki casts people for reasons, I'm sure there is a reason he cast old actors again, so I support this choice.
And then apparently Pattinson personally wanted to be involved and spent weeks developing the voice and ten sent in a tape (someone just told me this today, so if it's wrong that'd be a bummer)
Just like Miyazaki casts people for reasons, I'm sure there is a reason he cast old actors again, so I support this choice.
And then apparently Pattinson personally wanted to be involved and spent weeks developing the voice and ten sent in a tape (someone just told me this today, so if it's wrong that'd be a bummer)
I didn't hear any fault with the dub, and I shared your overall concern about it, but contextually it seems like the right call. Or at least, an informed call with intention.
Violentvixen
(She/Her)
Wow that is bullshit.
I've heard nothing but good things about the dub, and I'm sure it's fine. And I've got nothing against anyone who has that preference either, there's a lot of valid reasons to want a dub. I would just as a rule of thumb rather not. Even if dubbing has come a long way, or is handled with care and expertise, it still represents an additional layer of obfuscation on top of an artistic work. And the origins of dubbing to begin with are so tainted with racism and xenophobia that it's hard for me to be fully impartial about the subject. Anyways, I don't mean to derail this thread either by relitigating subs vs dubs for the Nth time. Bottom line is the film is interesting, I'm glad I watched it, go see it however you can and make up your own mind about it so that I can read what y'all think about the movie too 
I thought Christian Bale was Ben Affleck because he seemed to be doing some kind of Boston accent
First exposure to Ghibli was a showing of Castle in the Sky at my university's anime society during my undergrad. Ahh the days of fansubs on VHS. This was pre-torrent days, people. You had to order these things and wait for them to be shipped to you. Madness.
I suppose, technically, my first 'Miyazaki' movie was Castle of Cagliostro, which I also saw at the anime society but it was a semester beforehand.
When I bought my PS2 Princess Mononoke was like the first DVD I bought, I think. First or second. And then Disney started releasing DVDs of the entire Ghibli collection and I bought most of them. Castle in the Sky is probably still my favorite Ghibli movie, but it is my least favorite of those specific DVD releases. I didn't care for the dub, Mark Hamil aside, and the subtitles on that DVD were downright incorrect in places.
I didn't care for Porco Rosso and Kiki's Delivery Service when I first saw them, but they both grew on me considerably over the years and are now probably my top three with Castle. Sometimes Porco cycles out with Spirited Away depending on my mood.
I suppose, technically, my first 'Miyazaki' movie was Castle of Cagliostro, which I also saw at the anime society but it was a semester beforehand.
When I bought my PS2 Princess Mononoke was like the first DVD I bought, I think. First or second. And then Disney started releasing DVDs of the entire Ghibli collection and I bought most of them. Castle in the Sky is probably still my favorite Ghibli movie, but it is my least favorite of those specific DVD releases. I didn't care for the dub, Mark Hamil aside, and the subtitles on that DVD were downright incorrect in places.
I didn't care for Porco Rosso and Kiki's Delivery Service when I first saw them, but they both grew on me considerably over the years and are now probably my top three with Castle. Sometimes Porco cycles out with Spirited Away depending on my mood.
Violentvixen
(She/Her)
Saw How Do You Live (there were still posters up in Japan when we were there so I saw it by that name first) last night. It is visually stunning, but it really feels like a bunch of short stories with a very weak overarching connection of a very boring/silent protagonist. Those short stories are, as @Tomm Guycot noted, bucolic/horrifying. All of them had merit, but I kind of wonder how much better a bunch of short films would have been without forcing them to be connected.
The viewing experience was lessened by other members of the audience. There was a family who were constantly getting up and moving around, including three of their kids who kept moving around to lay across a bunch of seats closer to the screen. And the guy directly next to me got up and let to answer phone calls (it was silent but I could see from the screen) five times during the movie, including the last few minutes, which resulted in the girl next to him loudly recapping the last few minutes of the movie during the credits. Also that lady loudly yelled "what the fuck" multiple times through the movie. Possibly the highest rate of mask-wearing I've seen anywhere in town this year though? That was nice.
But I would never have seen the stunning, lush detail of the backgrounds if I'd seen it at home. The details in Natsuko's bedroom (for some reason the lamp is sticking out in my memory), how shadows showed individual blades of grass, the stunning detail of water droplets and waves... damn. If I'd streamed this then looked at the backgrounds blown up on the computer I'd notice, but dang I wish seeing movies in theaters wasn't such a shitty experience. I didn't like it much before the pandemic and really don't like going now but my spouse really wanted to see this on a big screen. It was the right decision but dang I need to make a rich friend with a private screening room.
We went out to dinner afterwards and when we mentioned to our waitress that we saw it and liked it but recognized the disjointedness of it she said that's what she'd heard too. But she noted that she was excited to see it because "I know that anything Miyazaki makes will be beautiful and move me" and you know what, that's a great summary.
Also on a personal level I was thrilled at how much more of the language I could pick up now. Just knowing the different endings, politeness levels/etc gives an impact that subtitles don't.
The viewing experience was lessened by other members of the audience. There was a family who were constantly getting up and moving around, including three of their kids who kept moving around to lay across a bunch of seats closer to the screen. And the guy directly next to me got up and let to answer phone calls (it was silent but I could see from the screen) five times during the movie, including the last few minutes, which resulted in the girl next to him loudly recapping the last few minutes of the movie during the credits. Also that lady loudly yelled "what the fuck" multiple times through the movie. Possibly the highest rate of mask-wearing I've seen anywhere in town this year though? That was nice.
But I would never have seen the stunning, lush detail of the backgrounds if I'd seen it at home. The details in Natsuko's bedroom (for some reason the lamp is sticking out in my memory), how shadows showed individual blades of grass, the stunning detail of water droplets and waves... damn. If I'd streamed this then looked at the backgrounds blown up on the computer I'd notice, but dang I wish seeing movies in theaters wasn't such a shitty experience. I didn't like it much before the pandemic and really don't like going now but my spouse really wanted to see this on a big screen. It was the right decision but dang I need to make a rich friend with a private screening room.
We went out to dinner afterwards and when we mentioned to our waitress that we saw it and liked it but recognized the disjointedness of it she said that's what she'd heard too. But she noted that she was excited to see it because "I know that anything Miyazaki makes will be beautiful and move me" and you know what, that's a great summary.
Also on a personal level I was thrilled at how much more of the language I could pick up now. Just knowing the different endings, politeness levels/etc gives an impact that subtitles don't.
Whew, that was a heady film! Of all things it reminded me of a late-era Gene Wolfe book. His post-masterpiece works similarly push the boundaries of conventional plotting and challenge a lot of the assumptions we bring about how a story is told. And like those stories this has a lot to say but you have to put in the work.
I think the thing I appreciated the most (other than the gorgeous animation and design craft) was the pacing. I really liked the extended first act full of slow quiet scenes that let us inhabit the depths Mahito's pain, anger, and self-loathing with nary a pandering exposition to be seen.
I think the thing I appreciated the most (other than the gorgeous animation and design craft) was the pacing. I really liked the extended first act full of slow quiet scenes that let us inhabit the depths Mahito's pain, anger, and self-loathing with nary a pandering exposition to be seen.
I don't know if I would call him a self-insert for the audience in the vein of your silent video game protagonists. But I'm reminded a lot of the best versions of that trope like Link or some of the Suikoden protagonists where they have a lot of personality and agency there under the surface, and their body language when they react to the things that happen around them often speaks volumes. I found the story of his maturity over the course of the film one of the best parts of the movie, but I can get where pov's like yours would come from.
Violentvixen
(She/Her)
Hmm, fair. This is something I wouldn't pick up on well so there could be additional layers there I wouldn't understand.
I like watching subs for the reason you described upthread (it's really nice to have additional lingual context for what's going on, especially when proper nouns and pronouns are concerned). But one of the admitted advantages of watching a dub is that when you don't have to look at words at the bottom of the screen, your eyes are free to move about a scene and focus on other things that might otherwise slip your attention. It's not always a huge issue (Miyazaki often lets his most important moments in his films happen without any dialog - letting the visuals tell the entire story) but it's a thing. And it's not even necessarily a bad thing inherently - it makes successive watches even more fun because you'll be discovering all kinds of little things you didn't see the first time.
Ludendorkk
(he/him)
Yeah, Mahito is a very different kind of protagonist than the precocious Miyazaki archetype we usually get, withdrawn and trying to hide an ocean of pain under a veil of stoicism he thinks people want to see from him. It's a "performance" with the kind of subtly that's rarer to see in animation.
Tomm Guycot
(he/him)
I watched Princess Kaguya for the first time this week. it is not the right movie to watch late at night when you're tired.
However animation-wise it's one of the most impressive things I've seen.
However animation-wise it's one of the most impressive things I've seen.