Tag Archives: Studio Ghibli

Anime Reviews, Slice of Life

My Neighbors the Yamadas – Anime Review

1 Comment

Japanese Title: Tonari no Yamada-kun

 

Similar: Kaasan: Mom’s Life

The Tale of the Princess Kaguya

Watched in: Japanese

Genre: Slice of Life

Length: 1 hr. 44 min. movie

 

Positives:

  • Charming life stories
  • Cute picture book art
  • Easy lessons for kids

Negatives:

  • Might not have much appeal to older audiences

(Request an anime for review here.)

Today’s review will be a short one, as I’m working a massive triple review for release in the next few weeks. This time, we look at one of Studio Ghibli’s lesser-known films, My Neighbors the Yamadas.

It follows the lives of a quirky Japanese family, telling life stories in a series of vignettes. It covers subjects such as where children come from (incorporates the myths of the stork and the bamboo) and secrets to a happy marriage. It talks of the importance in working together as a family team, otherwise you’ll be surrounded by sharks before you know it. This film loves it’s visual metaphors and are what make it engaging to watch, even as an adult.

The family are an interesting cast of characters. My favourite is the grandmother who has been around long enough not to care what other people think. She speaks her mind and imparts sage advice on those around her. The father is a typical salaryman and a good husband. He and his wife make a daggy couple that their teenage son wishes were much cooler. Then we have the daughter, a bundle of joy and innocence. Super adorable.

The lessons are a little more geared towards children, explaining life concepts in easy to understand ways, though they aren’t particularly complex. The visuals alone do a good job of conveying the messages. If nothing else, My Neighbors the Yamadas will facilitate a conversation between children and their parents about some of the tougher questions.

On the flip side, I don’t see much appeal for anyone outside of children or parents. For myself, I enjoyed the art and animation most, the metaphors and ideas, but I won’t push this as essential viewing. It’s a charming film for those looking to complete the Ghibli collection.

Art – High

This animated picture book has the perfect style for this children’s story. A little rough and unpolished around the edges.

Sound – High

The acting is great. Even the kids, played by real children, are a success and add a charming innocence to the cast.

Story – High

The daily life of the quirky Yamada family is an endearing slice of life perfect for parents to watch with their kids.

Overall Quality – High

Recommendation: For kids and parents. My Neighbors the Yamadas explains life in an easy manner for children to understand, while also offering entertainment to parents. However, if you don’t fall into either group, then this isn’t necessary viewing.

(Request reviews here. Find out more about the rating system here.)

 

Awards: (hover over each award to see descriptions; click award for more recipients)

Positive: 

CharmFluid Animation

Negative: None

Adventure, Anime Reviews, Fantasy

The Cat Returns – Anime Review

4 Comments

Japanese Title: Neko no Ongaeshi

 

Related: Whisper of the Heart

Similar: Spirited Away

Howl’s Moving Castle

 

Watched in: Japanese & English

Genre: Adventure Fantasy

Length: 1 hr. 15 min. movie

 

Positives:

  • Cats everywhere
  • Charming adventure
  • That Ghibli animation

Negatives:

  • Not much to the story

(Request an anime for review here.)

Haru was going about her day as normal. Frantic, late for school, crushing on a boy. When she saves a cat from becoming road kill, he thanks her. No, he doesn’t nuzzle her. He thanks her. With words.

Turns out that he’s the prince of cats. His father and the other cats, so grateful of her actions, shower her with gifts. Cattails blanket her front yard the next morning, a hundred mice await in her school locker, each in a chocolate gift box, and most “generous” of all is her engagement to the cat prince. What does she mean she doesn’t want to get married to a cat? He’s a prince! Then a mysterious voice says there may be a way out.

“Go to the Cat Bureau.”

And so she takes the advice and finds the bureau, where she meets Baron Humbert von Gikkingen, a gentleman of a cat. This is where the real adventure begins.

The Cat Returns is a charming little film, a fairy tale-like adventure into a world of cats. 90% of the characters are cats. What a delightful bunch they are too. Their insistence in thanking her with gifts only a cat would like has me laughing. The mangy cat king is a riot. I particularly like the fat cat that acts as the muscle when she ventures into the cat world. Then we have the baron, all suave and confident.

Despite her insistence to the contrary, Haru finds herself drawn to the whimsy and fantasy of being a cat, especially with the dashing baron by her side. The deeper she ventures, the harder it will be to pull back, and the more out of control the cats become.

Simplicity is the name here. With similarities to Spirited Away, The Cat Returns may set false expectations. Don’t go in with that mentality. Where most Ghibli titles have crossover appeal for adults and children, The Cat Returns favours very much to the latter. This one won’t be for you if you can’t survive on whimsy and charm. Kids will get a kick out of it – the chase scene with a swarm of cats is a ride – but there isn’t much below the surface. The story follows the path you saw in the beginning, ending in a convenient resolution out of a kids’ fairy tale. Nor do any of the characters have that certain something from the Spirited Away or Moving Castle cast that could carry a narrative. They aren’t bad though.

The Cat Returns isn’t essential viewing to any but the Ghibli completionist. Watch it with your kids, if you have any.

Art – Very High

The Cat Returns has that lovely Ghibli style, though doesn’t look as good as their other films. Seeing this art, I assumed this was one of the earlier releases; however, this came out in 2002 and not the 80s. The animation carries the department. That swarm of cats is fantastic.

Sound – High

Go with the Japanese track if you can. The dub has a standard celebrity cast of good screen actors that lack the cartoon voice quality. Not animated enough. Cary Elwes, Hollywood’s most charming man, being the exception as the baron. The Japanese is much better. Adventurous music.

Story – Medium

A girl finds herself dragged into a world of cats after she saves their prince from death. This is a simple fairy tale – fun, charming, limited.

Overall Quality – Medium

Recommendation: For Ghibli fans or kids. While The Cat Returns is a good film, the limited scope of the story doesn’t have the crossover for adults, as found in the studio’s biggest hits. Kids will love it.

(Request reviews here. Find out more about the rating system here.)

 

Awards: (hover over each award to see descriptions; click award for more recipients)

Positive:

CharmFluid Animation

Negative: None

Anime Reviews, Fantasy

The Tale of Princess Kaguya – Anime Review

8 Comments

Japanese Title: Kaguya-hime no Monogatari

 

Similar: Mushi-shi

Wolf Children

Spirited Away

 

Watched in: Japanese & English

Genre: Historical Fantasy

Length: 2 hr. 17 min. movie

 

Positives:

  • Masterful artwork.
  • Simple, yet has depth.
  • Employs surprising subtlety.

Negatives:

  • Folktale simplicity does limit character attachment.

(Request an anime for review here.)

The Tale of Princess Kaguya was the final film directed by the late Isao Takahata, the other half of Studio Ghibli’s directorial excellence alongside Hayao Miyazaki. Takahata tended to direct the studio’s more realistic works, such as Only Yesterday and the best-film-I-never-want-to-watch-again Grave of the Fireflies. I found it unusual for him to be at the helm of this project based on the Japanese folktale The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter. The departure from his comfort zone isn’t cause for concern however, for he executed this film brilliantly with a unique art style that makes the subtle story leap off the page.

We start with a bamboo cutter at work in the forest. To his astonishment, he finds a little girl growing inside a bamboo shoot and takes her home to his wife. They take the girl in as their own, but it is clear this is no ordinary child, one they believe is a blessing sent from heaven. She grows at an alarming rate.

Another blessing lands before the cutter when he finds a mound of gold inside a bamboo tree. This convinces him that she must be a princess. And a princess must live like royalty, so he tears up their mountainside roots and takes her to the capital. He gives Kaguya everything to make her happy – a mansion, the finest clothes, servants, the best teacher in etiquette, and dozens of suitors after her hand in marriage. Nothing is too much for his princess. But did he ever ask if she wanted any of this?

The Tale of Princess Kaguya is most effective in its combination of art and sticking to the folktale narrative. The art is beautiful, so beautiful. Even if you aren’t a fan of folktale stories due to their simplicity, Kaguya is worth it for the imagery. The style recalls old Japanese paintings (see below for one from The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, 17th century), though modernised a little to work better in motion. Studio Ghibli managed to make the art look traditional and have such texture (one can feel the “paper”) that you could believe they had taken some 17th century artist’s sketchbook and simply animated it.

This art is a great example of the “less is more” concept for the visual side of storytelling. They could have easily used effects to add more stars in the sky and atmospheric lighting, which I am sure would have still looked fine, but the restraint to exclude many modern techniques makes it special.

Narratively, Kaguya has similar restraint. It reminds of Western fairy tales, where the purpose isn’t to explain every detail or fantasy element. Why is Sleeping Beauty to die from a spinning wheel and not a sword? Where did Cinderella’s Fairy Godmother come from? It doesn’t matter. The tale is about a simple character in a simple story with a simple message.

You have to watch Kaguya with the same mentality, which is where I think some people may not be interested. Fairy tale simplicity isn’t for everyone. I love Disney’s adaptations of fairy tales, so Kaguya was great for me. (Funnily enough, I don’t enjoy reading these same fairy tales because without the visuals and style, I find them too shallow.)

What made this tale so interesting to me was its sadness. Frankly, The Tale of Princess Kaguya is rather depressing. We see her father seduced by greed, yet still believing he’s doing everything for her. He deems the villagers they lived with as beneath them (reminds me of Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens – recommend the TV series). Kaguya doesn’t want her eyebrows removed and teeth blackened like other noblewomen, yet she also doesn’t want to disappoint her family. Outside of the humour with the five buffoons that call themselves princes, professing how much they will worship her and how rare of a treasure she is, I find little happiness here. Then again, perhaps that’s just me. Even when she meets one of her old village friends again and has a moment of freedom, it just made me sadder because I knew how fleeting it would be.

And the ending…well, I leave that for you to experience.

Art – Very High

The Tale of Princess Kaguya’s art is both stunning and unique. To change the style would mean to lose more than just the art.

Sound – Very High

The dub is perfectly fine and the performances by Kaguya’s parents are particularly emotive. However, go with the original Japanese to get the full experience of all the formalities and uncomfortable elements of the period. Also, Kaguya’s voice matures better with the character’s arc in Japanese. Nice in-world music.

Story – High

A bamboo cutter finds a girl inside a bamboo shoot and wants to give her the world, not realising that the world is too much for a little girl. This simple folktale uses subtlety to evoke great emotion in the reader.

Overall Quality – Very High

Recommendation: Watch it. Despite the pastel art, I recommend The Tale of Princess Kaguya more to adults than to kids. The emotional subtlety is rewarding.

(Request reviews here. Find out more about the rating system here.)

 

Awards: (hover over each award to see descriptions; click award for more recipients)

Positive:

Fluid AnimationStellar Voice ActingStunning Art Quality

Negative: None

Adventure, Anime Reviews, Fantasy

Ponyo – Anime Review

7 Comments

Japanese Title: Gake no Ue no Ponyo

 

Similar: Tsuritama

My Neighbour Totoro

 

Watched in: Japanese & English

Genre: Fantasy Adventure

Length: 1 hr. 41 min. movie

 

Positives:

  • Beautiful visuals.

Negatives:

  • Ponyo, the character.
  • No arcs, no development.
  • Drags on.
  • No stakes.

(Request an anime for review here.)

Ponyo is The Little Mermaid but with children and no consequences. A little fish-human hybrid escapes from her sea wizard father to see the surface world, where she meets human boy Sousuke. The two become fast friends. However, her father, knowing the damage she could unleash on the world, summons the power of the ocean to bring her back. Things deteriorate when Ponyo tastes human blood and begins to transform into a girl with magic that throws the world off balance, causing insurmountable natural disasters.

This is the worst Studio Ghibli movie I have seen to date and with only five left for me to complete, it will likely be the worst overall. Yes, worse than Tales from Earthsea. It will be difficult to detail why Ponyo is so bad without revealing the end, so the next paragraph onwards will have spoilers. The short version of my review, for those interested in seeing this film for themselves, is as follows: Ponyo is an obnoxious character, the mother should have Sousuke taken away from her due to recklessness, there is no character development and no arcs, the end is garbage, and the story is boring. I do not recommend Ponyo.

Spoilers from here on.

So, Ponyo’s use of magic and fraternisation with Sousuke’s causes disasters around the world, with a tsunami most notable to our characters. One’s first expectation seeing this is to assume something will occur to halt the tsunami in time or everyone will die. Should the tsunami hit – keep in mind this is a Noah’s ark, God’s judgment tsunami – there is no way you could recover in a children’s movie without some bad writing to fix things, hence the above expectation. But the tsunami goes unchallenged and wipes the landscape. My alarm bells ring. And I am right, for no one dies in the end. There isn’t even any damage. I do not jest – nothing of consequence occurs by the conclusion. How is everything okay? Magic!

Go choke on six pack rings, you garbage movie. What a condescending story, treating children like morons that can’t cope with any stakes in life. Is Ponyo a film for the mentally fragile that cover their eyes and block their ears to reality, pretending everything is perfect?

The problems don’t end there. We’ve had decent stories with bad endings before, but Ponyo makes you suffer along the way by forcing you to sit through dull scene after agonisingly boring scene of Ponyo and Sousuke bonding or Ponyo being obnoxious. If only the fisherman had harpooned her at the start. Their “bonding” not only fails to capture the child spirit, Ghibli’s signature, but the scenes often serve no purpose to the story. I’m sure you’ve seen the infamous scene of Ponyo interacting with a baby. Is Ponyo’s monstrous face supposed to be cute? Nightmares are made of the stuff.

These “whimsical” scenes drag on forever in a vain effort to make this brat charming. Everything in Ponyo is overdone, including the score, which swells up as if at the climax of the film every other scene. This feels like a near 3-hour movie.

With an ending like Ponyo’s, of course there is no character arcs or development. All that changes is Ponyo becomes human because she and Sousuke “love” each other. I don’t need to say it at this point, but those two have no basis for a romance so strong that it fixes the world. If our world were reliant on them to save us, we’d be screwed.

Some things I’ve heard complaints about don’t bother me, such as how did Ponyo’s human-sized father have a fish child with a giant goddess. How did Hagrid’s human father mate with his giantess mother in Harry Potter? Who knows… Some questions are best left unanswered. The small details aren’t the problem in Ponyo. You need to look out for the big things.

There are only two good scenes in the entire film: when Sousuke’s mother flashes in Morse code to his father how much of an idiot he is for cancelling on dinner again (he has to work at sea) and the scene with the sea wizard walking on land. They got a laugh from me.

If you removed Ghibli’s visuals from this movie, no one would remember it.

Art – Very High

There is no denying that we have gorgeous art with a ton of animation. Just look at the opening scene with all the marine life swimming around the sea wizard’s submarine. The amount of effort that scene alone would require is astonishing. Shame it didn’t go towards a better story.

Sound – Medium

The opening opera singer is magnificent. The score, taken as individual tracks, is great too, but the usage is overdone. It’s trying to be Fantasia.

Story – Very Low

A little boy finds a sea creature that begins to transform into a girl, though heralds natural disasters as well. With weak characters, scenes that drag, and the worst ending in anime, Ponyo’s story is utter garbage.

Overall Quality – Low

Recommendation: Avoid it. I haven’t decided on whether Ponyo should be in my lowest tier yet. Regardless, it isn’t worth your time. A few clips of the visually beautiful scenes on YouTube are the best there is from this title.

(Request reviews here. Find out more about the rating system here.)

 

Awards: (hover over each award to see descriptions; click award for more recipients)

Positive: None

Negative:

Atrocious PlotLacks ConflictNo Development

Adventure, Anime Reviews, Fantasy

Tales from Earthsea – Anime Review

8 Comments

Japanese Title: Gedo Senki

 

Similar: Castle in the Sky

Princess Mononoke

Howl’s Moving Castle

 

Watched in: Japanese & English

Genre: Fantasy Adventure

Length: 1 hr. 55 min. movie

 

Positives:

  • Gorgeous art.

Negatives:

  • No depth to the characters.
  • Lacks engagements.
  • Doesn’t explore anything.

(Request an anime for review here.)

Tales from Earthsea is often the lowest rated feature film by Studio Ghibli on anime database sites, sometimes by a significant margin. This discrepancy for such a venerable studio has always made Tales from Earthsea stand out to me. It looked like a Ghibli movie, so what could be wrong?

The world is deteriorating. A division of desires between dragons and humans has thrown nature off balance. Archmage Sparrowhawk goes on a journey to find the cause, meeting Arren, young prince of the kingdom, who has just killed his father and is on the run. The prince harbours a darkness within that grants him both strength and cruelty. The sorcerer Cob sees Arren’s weakness as an opportunity to tip the balance further and open the gate to immortality.

Confusion. I characterise Tales from Earthsea best with the word ‘confusion’. The above plot outline isn’t clear until the movie is almost over. The storytelling is so vague. It doesn’t lay out any clear information at the start. You don’t know what any character wants, where anything is going, or why anything is this way. In any story, you must give the audience something to care about from the beginning, whether it is a character motivation, a goal, or an ideal. You wander aimlessly through Tales from Earthsea. I paused several times to watch a YouTube video out of boredom. I care nothing about this film.

Sparrowhawk is a one-note noble wizard, Arren doesn’t have anything going for him outside of these visually intriguing nightmares, and Cob is just Evil Guy 63728. His subordinate slaver is more interesting. We don’t receive reason to care for their actions or their fates. Lacking are the ‘human’ moments that make us love Ghibli’s other characters. How charmed are we by Howl’s first interaction with Sophie? How lovable is Chihiro within minutes? Who could say no to the fluffy Totoro after a single yawn? How strongly did we feel for Seita’s predicament before we even knew his name?

The world of Earthsea almost made me care. When the main characters reach the town of Hort, it’s a magnificent sight, hinting at a deeper world. A back alley shows us citizens crippled by an opium-like substance. A slaver insinuates he will sell a girl into sex slavery. Drugs, slavery, and other dark elements speak of a depth created by the novel’s author, yet not translated by the film studio. These dark elements don’t matter in the movie.

I can see why praise is scarce for Tales from Earthsea with so little to recommend itself. With the basics of storytelling and characters missing from here, there’s no point commenting on the higher layers, such as the scene-to-scene. It’s a waste of time when every problem could be summed up with, “You need to go back to the story/character and fix it first.”

Tales from Earthsea was the first feature film directed by Hayao Miyazaki’s son, Goro, and he hadn’t grasped the Ghibli magic that made the studio’s films stand out.

Art – Very High

Even with a bad story, Studio Ghibli delivers quality art. The shot of the city impresses me in particular, as does the cinematography on the dragon’s back in the opening scene.

Sound – Medium

The acting is decent. The dub needs more energy, especially from the girl. In the dub, Willem Dafoe replaces a Japanese woman as the sorcerer, oddly enough.

Story – Low

A boy combats his inner demons as an evil sorcerer seeks immortality. Tales from Earthsea lack direction, foundation, development, and depth to make a compelling story.

Overall Quality – Low

Recommendation: Don’t bother. Unless you must watch Tales from Earthsea to complete the Ghibli library, there is no reason to waste your time on this film.

(Request reviews here. Find out more about the rating system here.)

 

Awards: (hover over each award to see descriptions; click award for more recipients)

Positive:

Fluid AnimationStunning Art Quality

Negative:

DissapointingHollow World BuildingShallow