I’ve loved Japanese anime director and writer, Hayao Miyazaki, since the second grade, when a family friend got me Spirited Away for Christmas. From that point on came my extreme obsession with everything Japanese, especially anything having to do with the fabulous filmmaker. I love all of the characters in all of the movies, and I love the fact that he often has strong, independent women as the leading roles for them. He also believes in protecting the Earth and nature in general, and he demonstrates that in his some of his films as well. Here is a list of all the films I obsessed (and still obsess) over:
• Castle of Cagliostro (here’s the trailer)
• Nausicäa of the Valley of the Wind (here’s the trailer)
• Castle in the Sky (here’s the trailer)
• My Neighbor Totoro (here’s the trailer)
• Kiki’s Delivery Service (here’s the trailer)
• Porco Rosso (here’s the trailer)
• Whisper of the Heart (here’s the trailer)
• Princess Mononoke (here’s the trailer)
• Spirited Away (here’s the trailer)
• The Cat Returns (here’s the trailer)
• Howl’s Moving Castle (here’s the trailer)
The other day I watched Miyazaki’s latest film, Ponyo (on the Cliff by the Sea) (trailer). It is a charming adaptation of the Hans Christian Andersen tale, “The Little Mermaid”. Only in this version, the little mermaid is a young fish-girl, and she wants to go up to land because she is in love with a five year old boy, named Sosuke, who also loves her. Sosuke names the fish-girl Ponyo, which Ponyo accepts as her new name (it’s a wonderful name when compared to the one her father had given her – Brünnhilde). Ponyo escapes her underwater home to be with Sosuke, but as a result, chaos breaks out at sea when Ponyo’s father is trying to get her back and the waves go out of control. (It doesn’t help that Ponyo is constantly changing from a human to a fish.) It was a good film, but it wasn’t quite as deep or multi-faceted as much of Miyazaki’s other work is. But it was still interesting and totally different than any children’s film we have here in the US. As usual, Miyazaki did a fantastic job of creating a completely different world from our own. As for the characters, the little kids were totally adorable and lovable. I was, however, finding it a little bit hard to like Sosuke’s mother. She loved Sosuke and was always doing what she thought was best for him, but she was sort of crazy and was always making unsafe choices (she drove like a maniac everyday and drove even more dangerously in the middle of a huge rainstorm). All in all, it was a really cute film, perfect for seeing with your five year old cousin or taking to a babysitting job.
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