Son of Miyazaki: A Goro Miyazaki Retrospective

YouTube essayist and documentary filmmaker Steven McCarthy returns once again with another look at Studio Ghibli, this time examining the career of Goro Miyazaki, the son of founding director Hayao Miyazaki who was responsible for Tales From Earthsea, From Up on Poppy Hill and Ronja the Robber's Daughter. This video goes into detail on these films, including production, overarching themes and public reception.

Goro Miyazaki doesn't get enough love from the fans. Part of that is due to the family name and the curse of having a famous father (ask Julian Lennon), and part of that is simply experience, as we have so few works to examine and study. If he continues to create animated films and television series and develop his own unique voice as an artist, those qualities will begin to dominate the conversation.

McCarthy does an excellent job moving that discussion forward, highlighting his strengths and weaknesses, his difficult relationship with his father, and the qualities that make Goro his own man. He may yet define the next generation of Studio Ghibli, bringing it into the modern era of 3D computer graphics animation while retaining the qualities of the hand-drawn tradition.

Once again, great video and great work. McCarthy promises this will be his final Ghibli documentary for a while, as he pursues other topics. I look forward to seeing his future projects. Somebody give him some grant money so he can create a feature length movie.

Artist Profile: Totoro and No-Face by Sarah O'Donald

Artist and illustrator Sarah O'Donald has crafted this vibrant illustration of Totoro and No-Face sharing a tea time. I really enjoy this piece, the colors and details are superb and demonstrate the artist's skills at composition.

You can visit Sarah O'Donald's Instagram page, which features dozens of illustrations that are absolutely brilliant. She has also made numerous appearances at art shows where her works are available for sale, featuring fantasy themes and characters from animation, comics and videogames. Her output is quite remarkable and I'm amazed at how much she has created. She must be spending every waking moment drawing and painting, which is, of course, the true goal of any artist. I'm very impressed and more than a little jealous. My artistic skills are nowhere near as refined and inspiring as these.

Great work! Here's wishing for your success!

Studio Ghibli Unveils Its Theme Park Designs

This week, Studio Ghibli formally unveiled their plans for an upcoming theme park in Japan. The designs were shown in a press event this week, including layouts and building illustrations. Visitors will enjoy walking through the worlds of Hayao Miyazaki's beloved animated movies including My Neighbor Totoro, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle.

The theme park will be located near the city of Nagoya in Aichi Prefecture, and is expected to open in 2022. The park will include European building designs based on Miyazaki's films, as well as large sculptures of many famous characters that evoke Japan's mythic and cultural past.

These illustrations are very fascinating and offer a glimpse into how the finished site will look. The park layout is largely forest, keeping as much of the natural environment in place as possible. Many of the locations also feel closer to an outdoor nature preserve than Disney World or Universal Studios. This is a very welcome development.

Personally, I must admit to some hesitation on the idea of a Studio Ghibli theme park. It doesn't seem right to turn these great family movies into a giant cathedral for consumptionism and materialism. I certainly hope this park doesn't include miles of parking lots like one finds in Orlando, or is packed with a thousand tacky merchandising shops. Fortunately, this design feels very low-key, almost as though Hayao Miyazaki created these attractions as a means to lure children outdoors where the real adventures await. It's better to climb trees and hills than stand in line for three hours to ride Splash Mountain.

Of course, I say this as someone who completely loves Disney World. If I could spend my retirement years in the colonial district next to the Hall of Presidents, I'd do that in a heartbeat.

These are only the preliminary designs for the Ghibli Park, so expect some changes and additions in the coming months and years. Its opening will come one or two years after Miyazaki's next (and presumably final, but with him, nobody can ever say) feature animated movie. This park will most likely be his final statement to the world, his farewell and inheritance to future generations. In that spirit, I hope it will be everything that Miyazaki-san wishes it to be.

The Cat Returns: The Complete Riffs

Continuing our series of "Ghibli Riffs," let's take a short look at the 2002 animated feature The Cat Returns (Neko no Ongaeshi), which was directed by Hiroyuki Morita and based on an idea by Hayao Miyazaki to feature a movie about the Baron character from Mimi wo Sumaseba. There are not many riffs in this movie, only a few, but they're very easy to spot.

Let's take a look at the riffs in The Cat Returns:

1. The Baron's house, hidden away in a secret village in urban Tokyo, is actually the same house as used by Sherlock Holmes in Sherlock Hound.

2. Haru chases the fat cat through an array of maze-like alleys, porches and rooftops in the city en route to The Baron. This sequence is an impressive urban spin on Mei's journey through the forest in My Neighbor Totoro (1988).

3. The image of the tunnel into another realm is a common Jungian archetype in fairy tales that symbolizes a journey into the unconscious. Hayao Miyazaki employed this image in Spirited Away and Ponyo.

4. I don't know for certain if this gag during the castle chase was intentionally riffing Animal Treasure Island (1971), but I was immediately reminded of a nearly identical scene from the Toei Doga classic. Hayao Miyazaki, as we all know, was a key animator and "idea man" for that movie. Again, I'm not sure if this fits the description of a "riff," but it looks close enough, so we'll add it to the total.

5. The entire chase sequence around a giant tower is another throwback to a Toei Doga classic, this time Puss in Boots (1969), which is basically one large Tom & Jerry comedy routine. This shot, in particular, is very close to a shot where the tower in Puss in Boots was knocked down. Hayao Miyazaki directly quoted a shot from that sequence in Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind.

6. Finally, this bit at the end made me groan a little when I saw it. It's a direct riff on the climax of Miyazaki's Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind, particularly the 1984 animated film (although the graphic novel also includes it). It's a cheap bit of deus ex machina that worked for Miyazaki because it was employed as a slight-of-hand trick, distracting you from the fact that none of the movie's major conflicts are ever resolved. In The Cat Returns, it just feels like a cheap gimmick. Oh, well.


Overall, The Cat Returns has its share of charms, and it's nice to see the production team pay homage to a few Miyazaki classics along the way.

Photos: The Cat Returns (the Favor)

Tomorrow is your last chance to see Studio Ghibli's 2002 feature film The Cat Returns in theaters as part of Studio Ghibli Fest 2018. Be sure to grab your tickets if you haven't already done so.

The Japanese title for this movie, Neko no Ongaeshi, translates as "The Cat Returns the Favor." I always enjoyed that title, it has a nice literary flair and it flows nicely. Most US movie titles are pre-packaged and sanitized for your protection by teams of lawyers and marketing weasels, resulting in something bland and boring and far too short. But Americans have notoriously short attention spans, which probably explains...something. What were we talking about?

Here are some photos from this movie. It's not one of my favorites, it feels very much like a made-for-TV or OVA production. I much preferred Ghiblies Episode 2, which played alongside The Cat Returns on a double bill during its Japanese theatrical release. That short film had all the experienced artists, while this main feature was staffed by the younger rookies. Joined together, they make a nice pair and a nice breather after the astonishing roller coaster ride that was Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away in 2001. Viewed on its own, however, this movie lacks something. It feels unfinished and needs either another script revision or another twenty minutes' running time.

But, hey, this movie has cats. That has to count for something.

My Neighbors the Yamadas: The Complete Riffs

The ultimate test for any diehard Studio Ghibli fan is spotting all the "Ghibli Riffs," the shots and moments that directly quote earlier works. It is a staple of the Takahata-Miyazaki canon and is found in all of their films and television series. Today, we're taking a look at Takahata's 1999 masterwork My Neighbors the Yamadas.

Watching our new Blu-Ray copy this weekend, I was struck by how few riffs appear in this movie. Most Ghibli movies contain well over a dozen riffs without breaking a sweat, while Yamada-kun only contains half that amount. Instead, there are a number of nods to classic cinema, which is a Takahata trademark that goes back years (Heidi and Anne of Green Gables both quote Citizen Kane, Horus cites Alexander Nevski).

Let's take a look at all the riffs in Yamadas:

1. The opening scene portrays a number of images that directly quote Japan's hanafuda cards as the main characters are introduced. This very same thing appeared in Takahata's great film Jarinko Chie (1981).

Also, is my memory playing tricks with me, or was the shot of the bird on the branches, another Hanafuda card illustration and seen in Jarinko Chie, also riffed in Pom Poko (1994)? Somebody should check that to be sure.

2. Two shots show a fascinating still-shot montage that reminds me very much of the introductory shots of the farming family in Omohide Poro Poro (1991). Both share the same fascinating blend of flat 2D images in a moving 3D landscape. I'm also reminded of View-Master, but that's probably just me.

3. Every Paku-san fan will immediately spot this shot. It's quoting the opening to Heidi, Girl of the Alps (1974). Speaking of which, is everyone getting enjoying their Heidi marathons? Don't forget that the Japanese (w/subtitles) and Espanol versions are available here on Ghibli Blog.

4. This shot is a really clever bit of comic timing and editing, showing a pack of hungry sharks that pop up to watch Jaws playing on the teevee set. It's a nice little nod to an iconic movie that may also touch upon the movie's running commentary on daily reality versus fantasy escapism that Takahata critiques.

5. This short scene of the family signing a popular Japanese song was previously heard in Omohide Poro Poro, in the scene where the school children are having their "class parliament" session. Also, I kinda want one of those table-and-pillow sets for the living room.

6. This bit where Matsuko tricks her son into cooking ramen noodles includes a short cut of the mother walking down the screen, top to bottom, only feet shown. This shot originally appeared an episode of Heidi. Hayao Miyazaki also riffed that same shot in Princess Mononoke, in the shots of the Shishigami walking in darkness, his footsteps spawning plant life at an accelerated lifespan.

7. This scene where Takashi daydreams is another Takahata trademark, as the outside world dissolves and we enter into the inner worlds of the characters' minds. Anne of Green Gables (1979) and Gauche the Cellist (1982) are probably my favorite examples.

8. This funny scene of Takashi trying to take a family photo while everyone else is glued to the television is another great moment where Paku-san criticizes escapism at the expense of missing out on daily life. But did you also spot the movie that was playing? It looks exactly like a scene from Horus, Prince of the Sun. Nice. Oh, and Hayao Miyazaki also quoted that same shot in Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves (1971).

9. This great little comic moment of Noboru wrecking his room in a fit of joy is a wonderful nod to Charlie Chaplin's classic movie The Gold Rush. Be sure to grab that movie on Criterion Blu-Ray, which features the original 1925 release that is waaay better than the 1940s remix.

10. Yamada's most dramatic sequence is this extended story where Takashi is compelled to stand up against a pack of neighborhood bullies but is humiliated instead. Sitting alone on a park swing, he imagines himself as the caped superhero Kamen Rider, who bravely chases villains, fires a pistol and performs wild motorcycle stunts. The illusion of fantasy versus the harsh reality of real life is portrayed in stark, tragic terms. The shot of the father on the swing has always reminded me of Akira Kurosawa's masterful Ikiru.

11. This poignant scene of Takashi on his way to work includes this compelling shot of him riding in a crowded train, lost in a sea of anonymous faces. Pom Poko also featured a nearly identical shot of one of the main tanuki characters, who is forced to survive by assimilating into the human world and its soul-crushing salaryman lifestyle.

12. This shot of a crowd moving at a diagonal angle reminds me of a nearly identical shot from Horus, Prince of the Sun. Hayao Miyazaki also riffed the same shot in Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind (1984) and Kiki's Delivery Service (1989).

13. The magnificent song-and-dance finish with the Yamadas floating through the air on umbrellas is actually a direct quote from The Story of Perrine, the 1977 season of World Masterpiece Theater, specifically the opening sequence where cartoon characters float on dandelions through the air. Takahata also riffed the same shot in Gauche the Cellist. This has always fascinated me; Paku-san assisted the Perrine team on storyboards for one or more episodes, but only in a supporting fashion.


Coda. In addition to the Ghibli and cinema riffs, My Neighbors the Yamadas has a number of visual references to Japanese art and folklore, including the famous Hokusai painting, The Great Wave of Kanagawa, and various stories about where children come from. The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter is most fascinating, as it leads directly to The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (2013), Takahata's final masterpiece.

There are also many musical cues to Japanese and Western classical and modern popular songs that always leaves me inspired and overwhelmed. One of the great joys of a Takahata movie is enjoying the wonderful music and being swept along in his world. When Studio Ghibli was founded, Toshio Suzuki proclaimed, "we want to create movies that celebrate the joys and sorrows of life." I can't think of a more perfect illustration of that mantra than My Neighbors the Yamadas. This movie is a miraculous celebration of art and life.

"If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger" and the Death of Pop Culture Blogs

I'm very sad to discover that Tom Sutpen's essential pop culture photo blog "If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger..." has closed down. I don't know exactly when this occurred, but the author's Twitter page was last updated on March 29.

Every week, I am reminded that the golden age of movie and pop culture weblogs has now passed, as people have devolved from engaging with culture to merely consuming it. People once shared their love of movies and music and the arts, often sharing a spotlight to more obscure, left-of-the-dial subjects. It was always such a joy to discover these cultured, educated fans as they blossomed on the new online frontier of the 21st Century. Now it's nearly all gone extinct, and the few remaining holdouts are fighting over table scraps.

It appears that most people today are perfectly fine with just clicking on images on social media sites. They're not really engaging or bonding or coming together in any meaningful way. They're just sitting like a lump on a log, clicking buttons in a techo-digital drugged-out haze, like animals in a cage who press a button to receive their sugar pellet. Here's another pellet. Here's another.

This isn't interesting or even remotely fun, either as the rat in the cage or the one dispensing the sugar pellets. I tried keeping up with that on Ghibli Blog Twitter, and was modestly successful for a while, but it became so much work for so little payoff. One never makes friends or builds careers. Nothing grows or builds. You're either the sucker stuck inside the cage or the sucker stuck outside the cage.

I remind myself that nothing lasts forever, and it can become fairly difficult to endlessly curate and manage a website when there's virtually no money involved. That's often the reason why many of us quit in the end. We love doing this, but we also love to eat and have clothes on our backs. The internet age has been a great opportunity for writers, but it has also created a race to the bottom that results in stupid, useless clickbait that makes you want to hit someone over the head with a Whiffle Bat. It also results in websites that pay next to nothing for freelance writers, including many who pay nothing for "internships" that will lead absolutely nowhere. I recently replied to an ad for writers, and the company offered $100 for 4,000-word essays. There are beggars on the streets of Chicago who earn more money than that.

So, once again, I find myself saying So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright, and goodbye to another beloved pop website that made me feel more connected to the world and its boundless possibilities.

Also, I would like to politely point out that I need writing jobs that actually pay the rent! The work has to be out there. You can't all still be living with your parents.

Happy 30th Birthday to My Neighbor Totoro and Grave of the Fireflies

Today marks the 30th anniversary of two of Studio Ghibli's most acclaimed movies, My Neighbor Totoro and Grave of the Fireflies. The two were offered as a double bill in Japanese theaters, which has always bemused and befuddled fans around the world.

My understanding of the whole saga is that Hayao Miyazaki wanted to create his movie but couldn't convince Tokuma Shoten (the owners of Studio Ghibli in those days) to finance the project. So he convinced Isao Takahata to create a film adaptation of the famous novel Grave of the Fireflies and then piggyback Totoro onto that.

It must have been an enormous strain on both the filmmakers and the studio's finances to create two feature animated films at the same time, but they successfully managed to release them on time (more or less). Unfortunately, the Japanese moviegoing public wasn't very interested that summer, or perhaps they just couldn't handle the emotional whiplash. I'd also like to think that Akira-mania also played a role, as the two Ghibli movies were radically different and didn't fit in with the times.

The Totoro/Fireflies double bill was a financial flop for the studio, their biggest until My Neighbors the Yamadas in 1999. Thankfully, Tokuma Shoten continued to support Miyazaki and Takahata and believed in them unconditionally, and Ghibli rebounded the following year with Kiki's Delivery Service, which became their first box-office hit.

Meanwhile, both Fireflies and Totoro would become widely respected classics over time, thanks to home video and a little thing called merchandising. Once the kids had Totoro toys and plushies to play with, and enough time to watch the videos over and over a million times, they came around. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Animal Treasure Island on DVD

Out of curiosity, I checked Amazon to see if the 2005 Animal Treasure Island DVD was still available, and to my surprise, copies are still in stock. Yay! This Discotek Media release has been out-of-print for many years, so be sure to pick up a copy while you can. I see that Puss in Boots is more difficult to score, so don't dawdle.

This DVD is pretty bare-bones, but does include both English subtitles and the original US English-language dub. The cover design is pretty good. I do wish Toei would reissue this movie on Blu-Ray, but they seem very reluctant to preserve their history. Horus remains the only "classic era" title on BD, and all of the movies on DVD were single-layer discs released around the year 2000. Oh, and they're all LaserDisc rips.

I really can't explain that. Am I really the only one who cares about these classic animated feature films? Maybe. Anime fans, who are mostly high school and college students, won't touch anything older than a decade, and they especially won't touch old Japanese cartoons that were modeled after Walt Disney. Whatever.

Get this movie. Click on that link at the beginning of the post and buy Animal Treasure Island on DVD. Don't bother waiting for a BD to arrive. It won't.

Hayao Miyazaki Comics: Animal Treasure Island (1971)

Since we recently looked at Hayao Miyazaki's newspaper comic adaptation of Toei Doga's Puss in Boots, I thought we should also look at his version of Toei's 1971 classic, Animal Treasure Island. I love this movie, a true cartoon classic full of slapstick humor and adventure like a warm box of sunshine.

These newspaper scans are all in black-and-white. Judging by their quality, I have always assumed that the originals were in color, but that is only my personal speculation. These look like they were run off a photo copier long ago, and then later scanned into digital computer files. Thankfully, the page sizes are large enough so that you can read everything clearly (just click on the images to view at full size). I would be very happy if we could find originals, but these remain the only preserved copies of this 1971 comic.

This Miyazaki comic appeared after People of the Desert, his original epic manga serial from 1969-70, and so we see his drawing style far more established than in Puss in Boots, which still followed the style of Osamu Tezuka and classic cartoons. Notice the extremely dense, packed pages, a Miyazaki trademark. The arrangement of those panels communicates its own energy and tension, and it's a quality that continues throughout his career. Most Japanese manga comics are very spacious, zen-like in their arrangements and compositions. Miyazaki-san is just the opposite; he just packs together as much material as he can possibly fit onto a page.

This Animal Treasure Island comic series follows the plot of the movie fairly closely, albeit in a condensed fashion, and with a lot of the lighter material removed. We don't get to see the famous pirate battle (conceived and animated by Miyazaki, one of his all-time classics) recreated here, but space was no doubt a premium and there's only so much you can do with 13 pages. You just know that if given half a chance, Miyazaki would have cranked out at least a couple hundred without breaking a sweat.

This comic comes at his final year at Toei, as Miyazaki-san left with Isao Takahata and Yoichi Kotabe to join Yasuo Otsuka at the A Productions studio to pursue their ill-fated Pipi Longstockings project, as well as Lupin the 3rd, where Miyazaki served as co-director with Paku-san. Add in the Pipi project, the two Panda Kopanda short films, assisting on a couple other A Pro anime series and putting together Heidi, and you just marvel at the man's work ethic. I don't think Miyazaki ever took so much as a coffee break during this time. He must have lived solely on a diet of coffee and cigarettes and boundless ambition. He was out to conquer the world and would settle for nothing less.

Photos: Moretsu Ataro (1969-70)

The following screenshots come from episodes of Moretsu Ataro directed by Isao Takahata. The Toei Doga TV anime series ran from 1969-70 for 90 episodes. I found these screenshots from the Toei website while doing research.

One thing I really enjoy about these Toei anime programs from the 1960s is how they still embrace a Western cartoon style that will almost completely disappear in the 1970s and beyond. As much as I embrace anime's evolution away from the Disney paradigm and towards new horizons, I do hope they wouldn't forget the joys of a simple gag cartoon with really inspired animation and goofy humor.

Maybe I'm just feeling really nostalgic for Rocky & Bullwinkle and Hanna-Barbara these days. I'd really like to see this show. It looks really fun, the character designs are inspired in that classic-moderist fashion. And most importantly for this website, Paku-san directed these. What more do ya want?