Miyazaki Achievement Complete!
Over the past year, spacevlad and I have been watching all of Hayao Miyazaki's films. He's a very famous writer/director of animated films in Japan. We kicked off the series by watching Ponyo in theaters in August 2009 and then backtracked to 1979's The Castle of Cagliostro and have been watching them all in release date order since. We came full circle ( Read more... )
I think Castle of Cagliostro is a lot better if you know Lupin and crew. It was fun watching those guys in a big adventure after watching bits and pieces of the TV series growing up.
I need to see Nausicaa again. It's still a bit odd that I watched every Miyazaki movie other than Cagliostro before seeing Nausicaa considering it was really that movie that put him on the map. I agree its strength is in its world building...that combined with the 80s soundtrack gave me a distinctive Final Fantasy kind of vibe.
Mononoke will always put near the top for me because it was the first one I ever saw, I loved how action-packed it was, it's so epic and beautiful, and it was Miyazaki's first big break in the US. Having said that, going back and watching it around all his other movies was jarring. Despite the common Miyazaki themes of strong female characters, environmentalism, etc, it's undoubtedly the least Miyazakian of his movies, mostly because it is so incredibly violent compared to other works. It also lacks a flying scene...maybe that says more than anything else.
I'm still a bit surprised you liked Castle in the Sky so much. I think that one is ok but not great... it's so manic, I find the main characters a bit bland, and the villain is pretty one-dimensional. Still, the sky pirates are great, Laputa itself is beautiful, and it certainly is fun above all else.
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