ANIMATION – Top Ten Miyazaki Movies

Simpsons Quote:

Focus Group Guy: [after showing the kids some Itchy & Scratchy cartoons] Okay, how many of the kids would like Itchy & Scratchy to deal with real life problems like the ones you face every day?

[the kids cheer]

Focus Group Guy: And who would like to see them do just the opposite, getting into far-out situations involving robots and magic powers.

[the kid kids cheer again]

Focus Group Guy: So you want a realistic down-to-earth show that’s completely off the wall and swarming with magic robots?

[the kids all chat at once about it being a great idea]

So one of the greatest animation directors on the planet is Japanese and his name is Hayao Miyazaki. Today I’m going to give you my top ten Miyazaki movies.

You can watch the video below or read the post with the links. I’ve embedded a trailer to each movie below:

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Intro

I got exposed to Miyazaki while working on The Simpsons. Hayao Miyazaki is said to be the Walt Disney of Japan, and he’s made movies like Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, Howl’s Moving Castle, things like that. That’s kind of how some people know him for, those three movies, because now his movies are being distributed by Disney.

So I decided to make a list of my top ten Miyazaki movies. So, let’s begin.

10. Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind

Now this is not the video, this is actually the manga, and the reason I’m bringing up the manga is because the manga is actually a bazillion times better than the animated cartoon.

The manga was actually written and drawn by Hayao Miyazaki. It is epic, and there’s like, I think of this volume, of these I think there’s like three or four, something like that.

The movie itself, the actual animated movie, it’s not my favorite. It’s okay. The manga is much better, if you want the full story, this is much better.

Nausicaa the movie felt like it was, like, act one. And it really does show you that it is act one if you read this manga series, but as an introduction to Miyazaki I don’t mind it.

It’s a little bit too dire, I don’t know, there’s something about the way it feels, but that’s why it’s on my number ten. I still like it a lot but I’d rather read the manga than watch the movie over and over.

9. Princess Mononoke

Princess Mononoke, it’s Miyazaki doing like a PG-thirteen animated movie. Most of his movies tend to be very family friendly. Princess Mononoke is not family friendly.

There’s a lot of gore and it’s very adult, but it deals with really adult themes, and as far as adult I mean mature, not immature adult themes, you know what I’m talking about, when people say “adult” you think of the most immature high school kind of pornographic stuff, which I find ironic.

It’s a very mature theme about humanity’s desire to be industrious and nature’s desire to not be destroyed by human industry and the war between these two ideas that are both good in and of themselves, but come into conflict when one suffers because of another. And it’s a beautiful, beautiful movie.

So that’s my number nine, if you haven’t seen it, Princess Mononoke, you should watch it.

8. The Secret World of Arrietty

Now The Secret World of Arrietty is one of the newer Miyazaki movies. It’s based on The Borrowers and it’s fantastic.

It should go without saying that every single one of Miyazaki’s movies are drop dead beautiful. The backgrounds are always incredible in every single Miyazaki movie. Arrietty is no exception.

The thing that I like the most about Arrietty, besides the story, the story is really great, but I liked the feeling of being small, like these little people that live under this house, and the perils of everyday life living and being that tiny. Just to get a drink of water, it was really great, because you can see that it was a drop.

Unlike any other, like, Disney or even Bluth animated movies where you’re talking about something small, this one actually felt like it was small.

It wasn’t, like, a reinterpretation of the big making it look tiny and then there’s this big dolly ride or something. No, this was actually, the water, the way it looked, the props that they used, there was nobody walking around with swords, it was needles and things like that that would actually be stuff that you would actually use. I really enjoyed that sense.

So, highly recommend The Secret World of Arrietty.

7. My Neighbor Totoro

I saw the Japanese version with subtitles the first time I saw it, and then eventually Fox started distributing it.

Beautiful family movie about two little girls living in the mountains in Japan, something like that, where they meet the spirit of the forest by the name of Totoro who looks like a big, gigantic, fluffy rabbit, but he’s ginormous.

It’s great, this movie influenced Avatar: The Last Airbender, because you’ve got the cat bus, the cat bus has multiple legs, and then suddenly in Avatar: The Last Airbender, you’ve got the buffalo, the air buffalo who also have the exact same legs, same everything.

It’s a beautiful little movie, very dramatic, heart wrenching. It makes you feel like a little kid, and that’s the best part about some of Miyazaki’s stuff, it’s just very observational, stories are very true to life, and you just feel for these characters.

No singing, no dancing, none of that stuff, and it’s not very formulaic, yet this works. Very magical. My Neighbor Totoro, fantastic movie.

6. Porco Rosso

Porco Rosso is the very strange story about a man who became a pig, and he’s a World War I pilot. But he has a pig face because of a curse, or I forgot, but it’s just something that he kind of did to himself.

It deals with really mature themes that are not necessarily little kid friendly, but when you watch it, and I mean, you sit down and you look at the art and the imagination and the locations, and as strange as it is, it also has this very comical story about this stuff, and it’s so, so great, so fantastic.

I love Porco Rosso. It was one of my least favorite, it was one of the ones that I was like, meh, take it or leave it, until I saw it just recently, like seven months ago, six months ago, I re-watched it again, and my jaw was on the floor.

It was so good. I must have matured, I must have finally gotten to the point where it’s like, oh, now I get this movie, it’s fantastic, oh my gosh, and the art and the airplanes, and they’re all hand drawn. And it’s just so good.

Watch Porco Rosso, it’s so good. I can’t recommend it enough.

5. Howl’s Moving Castle

This one was distributed by Disney. Story about a girl who turns into an old woman, and ends up in this magical castle that walks around on legs.

Yeah, totally crazy, kind of Baba Yaga-ish looking castle. It’s good. There’s something about the magic in this, I like the whole idea where the wizard, Howl, has this raven king kind of thing, he’s a wizard, and he’s got this raven motif which is a lot like the raven king, kind of.

If you’re into fairy tales and you understand about the raven and all that sort of stuff. So, yeah, highly recommend it, I don’t know, it’s a beautiful thing, it’s a beautiful movie.

The castle’s fantastic, it’s a little quirky at the end, it has a really bizarre ending, and it’s open to interpretation. It’s worth watching. I liked it a lot. Howl’s Moving Castle.

4. Lupin the Third: Castle of Cagliostro

Okay, so this is Miyazaki’s first feature animated movie. Lupin was a character created by Monkey Punch. He’s a manga character, he’s a thief, he’s always getting chased by Inspector Zenigata.

One of the very first things in this movie is a ridiculous car chase where he’s chasing this girl being chased by gangsters. One of the best car chases on film. It’s just crazy awesome, all hand drawn, the cars are all hand drawn.

You’ve got to understand that this is exciting cinematic car chasing in an animated cartoon with hand drawn cars.It’s awesome.

Then after that it just gets wilder and crazy and it’s just fantastic, it’s just, you know, Indiana Jones-ish kind of action adventure, packed with the guy who has to save the princess. It’s great, and I love, love, love this movie. My number four, Lupin the Third: Castle of Cagliostro.

3. Island in the Sky

This fell down quite a bit. This was my number one movie for a very long time. This was one of the first Miyazaki movies I was ever exposed to and I was kind of blown away by it.

Indiana Jones action adventure style stuff, just like Cagliostro in a completely different way because this is actually looking for archaeological, you know, mythological place.

It’s an island that floats in the sky that supposedly hold treasure and everybody’s after it, and these two kids are the key to finding it. Specifically, this little girl. And it’s exciting, exciting, exciting.

You’ve got airships and sky pirates and evil, corrupt governments and it’s very Indiana Jones-ish. So I highly recommend this one, Island in the Sky.

2. Spirited Away

The reason I like this, I’m really into fairy tales, I really like the motifs of fairy tales and this is very, very, very much a fairy tale.

Starting off with going into the fairy tale universe, and knowing the rule of not eating the food in there because usually when you eat the food in fairy you end up becoming a prisoner in fairy, and then things go bad for you. Well, this is very much like that.

It’s a little bit Alice in Wonderland-ish, it’s a little bit of stepping into fairy and having to deal with all these fairy spirits and how to survive in fairy land, but it’s a very Japanese fairy land. I mean you’ve got witches that are very, very reminiscent of Slavic witches, like Baba Yaga, and it’s good, it’s fantastic.

This girl has to survive in a fairy tale land. She goes in a little girl and comes out a mature young woman. And it’s great, it’s great.

Kind of creepy, but fantastic. My number two is Spirited Away.

1. Kiki’s Delivery Service

This is the strangest one out of all of these. My personal taste is strange.

Kiki’s Delivery Service is about a little witch that has to become independent on her own. She turned fifteen, and apparently in her culture, once you turn fifteen you go out on your own and you build a life for yourself somewhere by yourself.

If you’ve watched Spider-man 2, they ripped off this story.

She has to kind of find herself, she kind of loses herself, and there’s even a section where she meets an artist in this movie where my friend, my Japanese friend, told me that he believes that Miyazaki put his own voice in the conversation that Kiki has with her friend the artist, and it’s a conversation about art, and it helps Kiki with her problem at the time.

You also have got Gigi, the best cat ever. This is the Disney version, isn’t it, yeah, the Buena Vista distributed one.

The translation, the dubbed version of this, is awful. AWFUL!

Phil Hartman does the voice. Now, Phil Hartman, you know, great actor, tragic death, BUT should not have been given the voice of Gigi. If possible watch the subtitled version because they kind of kill this movie with the dub version. I really didn’t like it.

I watched it without subtitles for the first time in Japanese, and then I watched it with subtitles, and I loved it, and then I watched the dubbed version and I was like, this is awful. What happened to Gigi, my favorite character in the movie, the little cute, super black, little cute cat that you just want to squish it because it’s such a cute cat.

I highly recommend Kiki’s Delivery Service. That’s my number one.

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So what do you think? Have you watched any of these movies? I bet you haven’t.

I highly recommend these movies. Hayao Miyazaki is by far one of the best animation directors on the planet.

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What’s Your Top Ten?

If you’ve seen these movies I’d like to know what you think about it, and if you haven’t and you start watching them, let me know what you think. Leave a comment.