SPDCA: Studio Ghibli Films

Written between flights and travel over the last two weeks.

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Sunday nights are the worst nights to watch Ghibli films.

Sundays, for me, are the days that are filled with the least. The days where I'm least likely to leave the house, least likely to clean, least likely to be productive in some way. Not that the preceding Saturday or Friday work out any better, but the tangible passage of time is felt on a Sunday. On a Sunday evening is when it catches up. When the paralysis of choice had led you accomplish nothing but refresh the feed aggregator aggregator and feel weird. 8pm rolls around and you wonder where your day has gone since you woke up at 9:30 that morning.

That's just me, anyway. I think a lot of people just watch Game of Thrones. Or Mad Men? Or spend time with their family? Anyway. Sunday nights are when an empty house feels alone. But watching a Studio Ghibli film does a great job at delaying the inevitable. Until, say, 10pm or so. Then you just lay awake wondering about what it was you just spent the last two hours watching, and how it somehow managed to get under your skin.

Studio Ghibli, if you haven't heard of them, is a Japanese animation studio, whose filmography contains some of the most popular, stylistic, and influential animated films since the 1980's. Their attention to artistic detail, strong but effective narrative messages, and whimsical characters have made them the Pixar to the Disney of Japan's animation industry. Curiously, Studio Ghibli films are distributed by Disney in the US, and have John Lasseter and other Pixar alumni in charge of the American versions of the script and voice-overs.

So, much like my machete-through-jungle hack-and-slash expeditions through a subset of Star Treks, Babylon 5's, or any other show I've picked up in the last few years, I started in on Studio Ghibli and its related films without realizing it. The earliest Studio Ghibli film I can recall watching was Princess Mononoke, at a sleepover at a friend's house, somewhere at or after 1998. I think it was a friend of a friend who had brought it over, as they worked in a movie store and had access to the latest releases. He brought over Princess Mononoke and Golden Boy. They put on both while everyone else played Warhammer 40K (something I never quite got into). Princess Mononoke was the animated film that beat Titanic at the box offices in Japan, had been nominated for an Academy Award, and had recently been released with dialog recorded by famous American actors. Golden Boy was a short, 6-episode anime miniseries that featured Kintaro Oe, a student of life, who in each episode traveled to a new town and somehow got into a situation with female nudity.

I stayed awake for Golden Boy. I fell asleep during Princess Mononoke. I was 13, and it was, what, 4 in the morning? Give me a break. I mean, I eventually went back and watched Princess Mononoke. I also went back to see Golden Boy. Consequently, it was even more hilarious after I got more of the adult humor. No regrets, but it's nowhere near the caliber of Ghibli films.

Anyhow. While I watched plenty of other anime films and TV shows after, I didn't revisit the Studio Ghibli films until at least a decade later, and these only at the recommendations of others. And even then, a good three years after they were suggested. Apparently, my "stack of media to consume" is massive. And I'm bad about getting around to it.

I believe I watched two Ghibli films in 2011. I watched no Studio Ghibli films in 2012 (though, I know that I rewatched Princess Mononoke at some point, but unfortunately never recorded that fact). I watched four Ghibli films in 2013. I watched twelve Ghibli films in 2014. I watched a lot of them on quiet nights after work. I watched too many on Sunday nights when I couldn't sleep.

Studio Ghibli films have an interesting, well... texture to them. Something you can feel, but you can't quite describe unless you see them yourself. The subject matter of the films have a very wide range. The films themselves are beautiful to watch, even for somebody without an understanding of however many thousands of man-hours would have gone into hand-animating some of the scenes. Their style lends a quality to the character's animations that I've only really seen with some of the first classically animated Disney films. As such, many of the more involved animated sequences stand up incredibly well, despite being animated some 30+ years ago.

Many of the films focus around common, humanist themes, particularly with a bent towards environmental conservation and anti-violence and anti-war. Some are subtle, some are absolutely not. Many offer strong, independent male and female characters, ranging from toddlers to the elderly (and some teenagers-transformed-into-grandmothers as well). Some offer a slice of a character's life, a core sample of everything that can happen in and around a person in a particular time. The environments and the spectacle of the background of the film always offer interesting complexities on top of the story (however, some can be a little strange at times).

So, the question is: why do these appeal to me at all? Aside from an incredibly high production value, they generally don't have the classical tenets of things Josh likes: space, robots, and journeys to the dark depths of the soul. In fact, some films are purely about romance (or even worse: teen romance). Some are simply recollections of someone's childhood (also, with the romance). Some are tongue-in-cheek comedies about atomic Japanese family life. Some are, quite frankly, a little sub-par. Some are children's stories about raccoons with huge, magical scrotums (which was fun to watch sitting between my mother and grandmother on an airplane).

What appeals to me about Studio Ghibli films? It's that each film is a new time and a place, with people to meet and stories to tell. They are like being able to see someone's dreams, and to not have to be afraid of them, or committing your suspension of belief towards them. And it is because in every film, characters fidget, and move, and make mistakes, and do the small things that people do despite the fact that they are animated. The attention to detail in between the punctuating moments in the films are something unique and enchanting, making them vehicles to somewhere when you are sleepless and nowhere.

I won't go into detail about each film. That would take ages, and most of the films are worth seeing, even if you never get past the box office juggernauts. Ask if you need a recommendation on where to start.

My favorites are probably between Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind and Castle in the Sky. Mostly because they are the films that jump-started me into finishing this journey about a year ago. Also becaues they are Ghibli films that do have the Josh-tenets for the most part, and inspire me in my own writing and storytelling.

It should be noted also that most of these films involved either the writing, directing, or production (or some combination thereof) a one Hiyao Miyazaki. Called the Walt Disney of Japanese animation, it was very interesting to see the progression of his career through his films. It was also interesting to see how different these movies became with his increased or lesser involvement, and also with the involvement of his son, Goro Miyazaki. It's hard to imagine how one person could be such a massive influence on a project the size of a feature film, no less to maintain such an output over the course of 30+ years in the industry. Sadly, his latest film, The Wind Rises, was announced to be his final film, after which he says that he is retired. Though it seems he has made this claim a few films before, being an octogenarian decreases the likelihood of further films benefitting from his vision. Studio Ghibli will continue, no doubt, and I will continue to enjoy their output, so long as there are sufficient English language subtitles and voice-overs. I maintain an optimism that they will continue to create artful films that can be enjoyed across ages, languages, and cultures.

Finally, a few weeks ago I was checking out at the self-checkout at Fred Meyers. I was supposed to bring a dessert, and I found that they started selling gelato like they do ice cream. Working my happy discovery through the scanner, I overheard two of the hovering teenage clerks talking about Miyazaki. "Yeah, he did a bunch of 'em, like, Princess Mononoke or Spirited Away, and that new one... what's it called?"

In a social outburst normally reserved for imagined conversations I make up in the shower, I actually interjected. "The Wind Rises," I told them. Of course, they didn't hear me, or, didn't expect that I was listening. "The Wind Rises," I repeated a little louder. "Right! Yeah, this guy knows what I'm talking about." We had a brief conversation. I told him I'd seen The Wind Rises a couple of days before, and that it considerably less whimsical than the other Ghibli films. I made an awkward goodbye, and took my bags of gelato.

It was one of the more gratifying conversations I've had with strangers in recent memory.