Moviedrome #1: Japanimation
Wow. What good suggestions. They will be used, but the first one is all me. Two classics of Japanimation. Both quite different. Don’t worry, nothing cutey-pie Pokemonish.
Akira vs. Spirited Away
Akira, written and directed by Japanimation god Katsuhiro Otomo, was the pioneer of cross-over anime in the US. Set in post-WWIII Tokyo, Akira tells the story of Tetsuo, a gang-biker, who becomes part of a secret government experiment to harness psycho-kinetic powers (with disastrous consequences).
Far less manga-esque, but still Japanese to the bone, is Miyazaki’s Spirited Away, winner of the Best Animated Feature Oscar in 2003. Incidentally, it’s Miyazaki month on TCM in January (catch Castle in the Sky and others). If you’ve never seen a Miyazaki film, prepare yourself for mystical heaven. When I saw Spirited Away with my son, we were both blown away (he was terrified, I was spellbound).
Enjoy. (We shall return for voting and further discussion in a week or so.)
Posted on January 19, 2006, in Film, Polls. Bookmark the permalink. 69 Comments.
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As per Elisabeth’s instructions, Akira is “R” (cartoon violence, quite bloody), and Spirited Away is “PG” (could be scary for little kids).
Ooh. I’ve got an excuse to go get that Ghibli Studio box set down at the DVD store…
By “cartoon violence” I don’t mean “silly” btw, but “animated violence.”
My Neighbor Totoro is my favorite Miyazaki movie. Spirited Away is good but it didn’t have the same sense of wonder Totorro did. Or maybe I just liked the music in Totoro.
er, movieDROME???
Two excellent, and very, very different, picks. “Ghost in the Shell” would also fit in with that set.
/geek
Ghost in the Shell is better than either of these. Honestly I think that Spirited Away would be more frightening for children than Akira, not that Akira is a kids movie. I believe that I own all three so if somebody wants to come over and compare let me know. Princess Mononoke could be on the list as well.
You have to give Akira credit for kicking off the international popularity of the genre. I think that all of anime owes it a big debt. Spirited Away is very different in that it makes more sense and seems to be aimed at children. It also doesn’t involve a post-apocaliptic future which seems to be a running theme in much of anime.
It’s thunderDOME, so why movieDROME? Maybe I’ll change it every day, to satisfy everyone.
John, Spirited Away did not entirely make sense, at least not to me! Both films are weird, it should be said. Totoro is on TCM next week.
Why moviedrome???? good heavens man. Don’t you know your Cronenberg??
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086541/
I’ve seen both of these already. I don’t really like anime, must admit. The animation… seems stiff, I can’t say it any other way.
FYI, here are IMDB links to both:
Akira: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094625/
Spirited Away: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0245429/
I’m not claiming that Spirited Away makes total sense. But it makes a lot more sense than Akira. Of course I had to watch Ghost in the Shell several times before I got it all.
OK, for extra credit everyone should catch another Miyazaki movie, and something like Ghost in the Shell. In essence, the contest is between apocalyptic and ethereal Japanimation (anime is pretty much divided between the two camps, cutey-pie-stuff aside).
D., if you think Miyazaki’s animation is stiff, I’d like to hear what you think smooth animation is.
Ronan, you should check out Satoshi Kon (Millenium Actress, Tokyo Godfathers) for non-apocalyptic, non-ethereal anime.
There’s also a thriving cartoon porn industry in Japan for some reason.
Bryce, I’ve wanted to see Tokyo Godfathers for some time. Consider it rented.
Bambi. I think… Bambi is great animation.
As for Akira vs. Spirited Away, I’ve not seen the movie version of Akira — I’ll get back to you guys on that. I do own a more or less complete run of the colorized English language version released by Epic Comics. The translator worked as a paralegal for my dad. I helped her occasionally on her translation of The Basketball Diaries.
I haven’t seen Bambi in decades. Old school Disney animation did set a high bar, though.
Bambi can be seen right now, on a DVD which came out this year.
It’s magnificent, really, there’s nothing to touch it these days.
I’ll see if I can’t get these this weekend… sounds like a perfect way to spend MLKday off with my son.
Though I’m going on record up front that as a Grave of the Fireflies fan, both of these movies have a high bar to clear.
Anime? Meh. I’ll wait till the next round to get excited.
(yes I know it’s important, yes I know it’s influential, yes I know cool people like it… but I still can’t stand it)
Rusty, you can skip Akira, but you must see Spirited Away.
Rusty, marry me.
Rusty, listen to Bryce. It’s not what you think. You will like it. I’m not saying you’ll love it, but you will like it.
LOL – D. Have you met Rusty? I think you’d want to marry him for more than just his taste in movies.
Suggestion:
Ghost in the Shell vs The Matrix. Some shots in The Matrix are lifted straight from GitS.
Umm, yes, El, I have met Rusty, and you’re completely right.
Ronan,
I like your intended dichotomy, but I don’t know that it holds up, because Miyazaki isn’t really all fun and games. There are some definitely non-cuddly battles in Castle in the Sky and Princess Mononoke, for instance: Massive robots destroying cities; giant wolves attacking peasants; and so on.
OK, everyone, enough lusting after Rusty. Can we focus on the issue at hand? Please? Kaimi was talking about giant robots. Go ahead, Kaimi. You were saying…
You’re just jealous, Sg.
Yeah, Kaimi, but it’s not, er, gritty…(That’s kind of what I mean)
whatever! shut up! no way! never!
I think that anyone who tries to flirt with Rusty on a blog should be banned from blogging forever.
Ok, I’ll cease and desist. I know it makes Steve crazy, which is definitely part of my joy in doing it.
These two movies really go a long way toward covering a lot of anime. I prefer Spirited Away, though I respect Akira.
Totoro is a great, great film. I’m still kind of pissed that Disney decided not to release Totoro on DVD. I’ve got an old Fox dubbed version of Totoro (fullscreen presentation) and even though the movie is great, the DVD sucks. No features, a pretty bad dub, and no freakin’ Japanese language track. Whatever. The animation is better in Spirited Away though.
My 8 and 5 year old like Spirited Away a lot. I thought it might freak them out, but they’re okay with it.
My Neighbor Totoro is a really weird movie. I can see why kids might like it, and also why they might be completely freaked out by it. (On the other hand, there’s the popularity of Lilo & Stitch, so maybe I shouldn’t be surprised.) Kiki’s Delivery Service is a wonderful little gem, though.
I’ll have to check out Spirited Away – see what all the fuss is about. =)
Anime weekend:
I saw Ghost in the Shell 2. Completely incomprehensible (I’m gonna watch it again), but eye candy of the highest magnitude.
I also watched Miyazaki’s Nausica of the Valley of the Winds. It was interesting to see an early example of many of the motifs which I knew from later stuff: the girl heroine, the big monster, the retro gear, the cloud flights etc. It was subtitle-only which meant I had to explain the story to my son as it went along. To my surprise, he was pretty glued.
I just finished watching “Spirited Away”. Watching “Spirited Away” was kind of like how I feel when people around me are eating canteloupe.
Canteloupe is an exquisitely beautiful peachy/pink color. It smells delicious, and looks perfect in little cubes on a fruit tray. Unfortunately, I hate the taste of canteloupe. Can’t stand it. But every season, when the new crop of canteloupe appears in the grocery store, I buy one, take it home, slice it up, and tell myself that this is the year of my conversion to the joys of canteloupe. And, each year, I’m disappointed. I still hate canteloupe.
So, I watched “Spirited Away” with the same kind of jealous detatchment. Even though the movie was beautifully made. And the little girl was just absolutely charming. I just didn’t like it. Oh well, maybe I’ll watch it again.
E.,
You are 100% right on canteloupe. There’s really no good reason to eat the stuff.
You’re wrong on Spirited Away, but that’s understandable. Let’s see: It has spectaculr storytelling (Miyazaki is a master storyteller and worldbuilder). It has a fun heroine and a weird hero. (And even weirder supporting cast). It draws on themes of nature; family; work; love; independence; and especially magic.
Like many of the classic children’s stories — and some pretty good adult stories — it uses the idea that there is a magic world, closer to us than we may realize. The movie tells us that fantasy can be a beautiful escape, but that even fantasy has its own problems. Life is the same all over, including in paradise and in hell. And what an odd paradise and hell Miyazaki can weave.
I was in love, pretty much since the moment I saw it, so I suppose you could say that I’m biased.
. Rather than a rewatch of Spirited Away, you may want to watch either Princess Mononoke or Castle in the Sky. Both are quite a bit darker than Spirited Away, and they involve completely different fantasy worlds (involving various post-industrialization dystopias).
So if you’re ever in San Diego, drop on by — we’ll break out the cheese plate and some chilled Virgil’s root beer, and have ourselves a Miyazaki movie night. It’s too bad you currently live in a silly place like Boston.
E.,
Try crenshaw! It is much better. The problem is finding crenshaw…
I agree with Ronan that GitS2 is to be seen and not understood. I’ve only watched it once though, so I could be wrong, but that first viewing didn’t give me enough hope to provoke a second. I’ll break it out for the kiddies in say, 14 years… Given that The Major is basically not on screen through 90% of the movie is a very different movie than the first one in which she was the focus of the movie.
For my own anime weekend I saw Cowboy Beebop: The Movie. It is basically an extended episode of the show, with a plot that seems stolen from Blade Runner in many ways. It made more sense than say, Appleseed, but wasn’t as pretty. Worth watching once, not worth owning.
We could probably plot animes on a 2-d graph, one axis being comprehensibility and the other being pretty pictures. Now I sound like the page that got ripped out in Dead Poet’s Society. Still, it would be a fun exercise.
I’m pretty excited. Just bought the boxed set called Archives of Studio Ghibli “part two” and can hardly wait to watch some of these films. I bought it, ostensibly, for Sprited Away, but it also comes with Grave of the Fireflies, Laputa: Castle in the Sky, Kiki’s Delivery Service, Parco Rosso, and Princess Mononoke. I’ve only seen Kiki of those, so it should be interesting. Part one of the Archives includes Totoro and five other films. These come with spoken languages in English, Japanese and Cantonese, and subtitles in English, Chinese, Japanese and Malay. These aren’t released by Disney — I think they’re Japanese. Are these available in the US for those people like BTD Greg who want a Japanese language track? Something to be on the lookout for for purists. I can hardly wait to watch! But I’m having trouble finding Akira. The search continues…
meems,
Disney, overseen by Pixar officianado John Lasseter has done a really bang-up job with U.S. releases of Spirited Away, Castle in the Sky, Nausicaa, Kiki’s Delivery Service, Porco Rossa, Princess Mononoke, and one non-Miyazaki, but charming film called The Cat Returns. They were supposed to rerelease Totoro too, but inexplicably changed their minds.
I watched Cowboy Bebop, and really enjoyed the first half of it, but got incredibly bored in the second half. I seem to have this problem with a lot of “action” anime.
A little plug here for one of the best shows on TV (according to me and my daughters–and my one year old boy likes it as well): if you like anime at all, the Nickolodean series “Avatar: The Last Airbender” is really excellent. It’s not truly anime (it’s U.S. produced), but it borrows heavily from the anime genre. The first season ended a few months ago. The main charcter, an “airbender” who can make air move at will, flies around on a glider that reminds me of the heroine in Nausicaa. It’s actually very well drawn and written for a cartoon series. I’m not sure when the second season is supposed to start, but it airs Friday nights, and reruns at various times. Check it out.
Also, if you’re in for just a brainless good time, check out The Castle of Cagliostro. It’s available from Netflix, and it’s Miyazaki’s first feature film. Cagliostro is a franchise movie based on the character Lupin the Third, a happy-go-lucky master international thief and womanizer. It reminds me a lot of a 60s-era James Bond movie or crime caper. It’s not kids movie (bad language and sexual innuendo) but it’s a ton of fun.
Lupin the Third is not at all like Miyazaki’s later films, but there are glipses here and there. And Miyazaki handles Lupin’s womanizing in a way that is far less misogynistic than some others have.
Has anyone here seen Howl’s Moving Castle yet? Anyone know when that will be released on DVD?
I love cantaloupe — can’t get enough. I still don’t really care for Spirited Away.
El, watch Bambi, instead. It’s truly amazing.
I didn’t like Spirited Away as much as Totorro. You might like Totorro better, Elizabeth. Totorro isn’t as bizarre or as scary.
I hate even the smell of cantelope. I think I must be allergic, or something–it makes me nauseous.
My kids love Avatar: The Last Airbender. I caught an episode and thought it was good. My husband used to be addicted to Dragonball Z, we have every last episode on dvd, Japanese versions, the works.
Sorry, it’s Totoro with one R, I keep forgetting.
Dragonball Z was at its height of popularity when I was in Japan. I even brought home some of the Japanese comic books. Avatar reminds me of Dragonball Z in some respects.
I second the recommendation for Castle of Cagliostro. It’s just a lot of fun. The other Lupin movies are pretty crappy, though, from what I can tell (it’s a series that different people have had a hand in over the years, and Miyazaki’s take is about 500x better than the others we rented).
And Elisabeth, do try Totoro or Kiki’s Delivery Service as alternate Miyazaki films. Both are very charming and make a bit more sense. I love Spirited Away, and thought it was especially delicious on a big screen, but there were elements that left me scratching my head, especially toward the end.
Thanks for the suggestions! I think I’ll try a few more anime before giving up on it completely
Bambi is so sad, D! I’ve recently discovered that the Wonderful World of Disney is not so wonderful after all (an unfortunate consequence of late-in-life social consciouness raising, I’m afraid), but I still love Bambi. And I really don’t get how Dumbo is so racist. The crows were the best part! They gave Dumbo his magic feather, for heaven’s sake!
Spirited Away is a greater achievement than Totoro, but in many ways I like Totoro better. The thing I appreciate about Totoro the most is how real the situations in the movie are. There’s no villain, no feats of derring-do, no magical quests. There’s just two girls moving to a new home (a staple of Miyazaki stories) who are worried about their sick mother. There’s plenty of drama to be had in a simple story like that, and Miyazaki finds it.
My kids asked me to rent the Disney version of Hercules this weekend. I liked the music, but found myself irritated by the way Hades was turned into just another Disney villain. Does there have to be a bad guy? The great thing about Yubaba in Spirited Away is that while she provides plenty of problems for Sen/Chihiro, she is a fully developed character who is not really evil. She is a powerful figure whose interests are at odds with Sen’s, but we come to understand her and even appreciate her at times.
…found myself irritated by the way Hades was turned into just another Disney villain. Does there have to be a bad guy?
Yes. And a princess. It’s an integral part of Disney’s marketing nad merchandising scheme. (Don’t get me started about how badly the Walt Disney Company is betraying their founder’s vision. All you really have to know is that the same company who gave us Snow White and Bambi has decided to abandon hand-drawn animation altogether–except for cheaply-produced knock-offs like Lilo & Stich II: Stitch has a Glitch and Kronk’s New Groove.)
That’s one of the things I find interesting about Miyazaki’s movies as well. There’s often not a traditional hero/villain dynamic. It makes for more complex and nuanced plotlines.
Oh! Oh!
Greg, you’re more than welcome. That’s fantastic news, since the current DVD of Totoro sucketh with great suckitude.
We watched Spirited Away this past weekend. It’s clearly the work of genius – a strange, magical world. It’s intelligent and interesting, and the animation is superior IMHO to Disney’s work, Bambi included. I particularly like the way that the world is not black and white, but shades of competing interests. Miyazaki does not talk down to his audience.
on to Akira!
Amen to Chad Too: “Grave of the Fireflies” is one of the best movies I’ve ever seen. Animated, non-animated, whatever. This movie makes me so sad that I *wish* I could stop watching, but I can’t. Amazing film.
Ryan, awesome: I just rented Fireflies. I’m on an anime roll. I was going to get Tokyo Godfathers too, but the blurb just didn’t grab me. Can someone persuade me?
We just watched Spirited Away yesterday. (My 5-year old watched from behind the bannister of the staircase.) A beautiful story! And I agree with SG who has mentioned the intelligence and magical qualities of the film. Since the boxed set I bought came with “Fireflies”, maybe that will have to be on tonight’s agenda. Still looking for Akira.
By the way, in Japan, Miyazaki’s pretty heavily marketed and merchandised too!! (But I admit, not as much as Disney Princesses. . .sigh)
It took me a couple of years to finally see Tokyo Godfathers as well — the blurb made it sound a bit too treacly for my taste. Boy, was I wrong. I remarked on the bait-and-switch here, but I’ll elaborate a little.
Three homeless people in Tokyo who have banded together for support find a baby discarded in a dumpster on Christmas Eve. They make it their quest to find the mother. That’s the blurb, or at least what I remember of it.
However, although the message of the film is ultimately optimistic and redeeming, Satoshi Kon is unflinching in his portrayal of life on the street. Sure, some of the main characters’ existence is romanticized — the three form a family of sorts, and their shanty home is equipped with such luxuries as a propane stove. Still, life on the street is no picnic — one is at real risk of being beaten up by a local band of punks. Plus, it’s cold in the winter.
The characters have all lost their connections to their families in the mainstream world through choices and actions in their past. As they embark on their quest to restore the child to his family, the lies that each of the characters have told to themselves and others are slowly revealed, and eventually, through a series of fantastic and highly improbable coincidences, they are reconciled with their estranged kin in their attempt to reunite a family they have never met before.
One of the main characters is a washed-up drag queen who wants nothing more than to be a mother, and who punctuates the action with spur-of-the-moment haiku, to surprisingly good effect. There’s plenty of action — shootouts, car chases, fights — and some humor as well. You won’t be bored, although you may not “get it”. Still it’s much more in line with our movie going sensibilities than Spirited Away or Akira. It’s fantastic in the same way that non-animated films can be. I recommend this film. See it as a double feature with Millenium Actress, by the same director.
A note on the animation — at the end of the film, my wife turned to me and said, “That’s amazing. I really thought that baby was real.” Much of the movie’s look is stylized, but the baby really is well done, and adds much to the movie.
A final note: the title is an homage to John Ford’s The Godfathers, which I have not seen, but which has a superficially similar premise.
Bryce,
Do you watch any TV anime?
Ronan –
I don’t watch tv, with the exception of Lost and any Duke basketball game that comes in on my rabbit ears. I’ve got four young kids, so DVDs are our primary form of weekend entertainment.
Check that — I’ve been keeping up with Battlestar Galactica, thanks to a random John.
Did I mention that I got Pom Poko for my kids a couple of weeks ago? It’s a mid-90s release from Isao Takahata (Grave of the Fireflies, which to my shame I still haven’t seen). It tells the story of a guerilla war between the racoons of the Tama hills against human developers who are building housing in their forest.
The film draws heavily on Japanese tanuki folklore — racoons are magical creatures who can transform themselves, or at least some of them can. The narrative style is very different what one might expect — it proceeds in a documentary format, with a narrator explicating the history of the struggle, which takes place over a couple of years, and the action taking place in short, set pieces.
Takahata uses three distinct styles of animation for the racoons: a fairly realistic style for scenes in which the racoons interact with humans in regular racoon fashion (as animals), an anthropomorphized style for the racoons interactions with each other, and a very simplisitic childish style for scenes in which the racoons are experience great emotion (happy or sad). It’s an effective technique.
Ultimately, the story is too long and drags, and some of it doesn’t make much sense. But it’s a fun ride, and beautiful to watch. I believe it was the highest grossing film in Japan the year it was released.
Also notable — the male racoons learn to inflate their testes to enormous size and use them as battle clubs in one scene. Those crazy Japanese!
I love Miyazaki for the little things – in Totoro, when the girls are waiting for the bus, there’s a long moment spent on a rain puddle with a leaf in it. He allows quiet space.
Jennifer, yes! And the really funny moments tend to be quiet, too, like when the big Totoro shows up at the bus stop and they just kind of give him a sideways glance. I love that these moments aren’t overplayed.
Disney (not that I’m hating on Disney really, but…) would totally have filled that moment with some topical wisecracks from a sidekick played by Whoopi Goldberg.
Let me just say that AKIRA and SPIRITED AWAY are two good choices, because for one thing, if I remember correctly, people turn into giant blob like creatures in the end of both films. However, if I had to choose between the two I’d go with AKIRA. It gets extra points because it has cool motorcycle chases where people beat each other with what look parking meters.
I went through an anime phase about a year ago and saw a lot of the films that have been mentioned here, GHOST IN THE SHELL, etc. My favorite was COWBOY BEBOP, the TV series, which I would highly recommend on the basis of the theme song alone. The whole series has great music.
But of all the anime I saw I have to say the GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES is the only one that really resonated and stayed with me. I agree with everyone else who has mentioned it on this thread. It’s amazing.
Wherever did Bob and Logan go to?
Aliison and Jennifer, I love that you mention the quiet moments and little things in Totoro. Miyazaki just knows how to make great films. I was watching Kiki’s Delivery Service yesterday, and there is a scene where the baker bakes a bread to hang in the window of the bakery that is shaped like Kiki on her broom. Kiki sees it and runs into the bakery. We see the scene in silence through the window as Kiki runs in and hugs the baker. No dialogue. Long shot. It’s just really good filmmaking.
I keep forgetting to rearrange my Netflix queue in time so I ended up getting two David Lean epics before Akira and I had to watch them and send them back before I could get Akira. I finally got to it yesterday. I was impressed. But my vote has to go to Spirited Away. Spirited Away had me in a trance from beginning to end, whereas I kind of found my mind wandering and overthinking as I was watching Akira, especially near the end. I couldn’t stop thinking about the Dawson’s Creek Trapperkeeper.
Another reason I have to go with Spirited Away is sentimental–it’s the first movie that my son and I watched together from beginning to end. He was between 18 and 24 months old I guess and he just sat and watched in the same trance I was in. It was quite a feat for that kid to sit still and pay attention for 90 minutes (just ask his Sunbeam teachers).
Personally, I liked Spirited away more than Akira, but both made since to me, and both were good in their own way, though I wouldn’t let my daughter of 5 watch akira, it would not only confuse her, but it has some scenes that wouldn’t leave a good impression on her, not til she’s old enough to understand it. I actually feel the same way about Spirited away, though it’s less violent it does bring up things that my daughter who is extremely intellegent for her age, shouldn’t be exposed to until she has a more solid standing for what is real and what isn’t.
Having been a fan of Japanime for a long time. Miyazaki has definitely created a world a person can get lost into. I own Spirited away, kikis delivery service (which my daughter loves), Castle in the sky, Totoro(another favorite of my daughter), and howls moving Castle.(which my daughter just watched with me tonight, though I don’t believe she understood the subtleness of the plot, she liked it non the less and stayed tuned in for the whole of it)
The last, “Howl’s Moving Castle,” I found to be one of his best works, very creative. Unlike some I’ve seen in here and other places I do enjoy Walt disney as well, but it seems everything they are doing of late is a rewrite of something that was done along time ago, sure there is different characters but the plots are all the same. Their is nothing truely original, that’s what I love about Miyazaki’s latest works. They are unique, original, and they captivate you.
Unfortunately where I live Japanimation is in short supply, so I am lucky when I can get some.