Princess Mononoke: The masterpiece that flummoxed the US
bbc.com
bbc.com
You can thank Netflix for changing that. I worked in Hollywood when Netflix rolled out House of Cards, and it was nothing less than a revolution for the execs at the time. Netflix terrified them. Before then, every entrenched name in Hollywood mocked the internet as something consumers would never prefer for movies. However, Netflix created a place for big budget, niche content in a way that forced Hollywood to sit up and take notice. If Netflix hadn't happened, nothing would've changed.
And thank God. I remember seeing Mononoke Hime in the theater, and it was my first introduction to anime. It was a breath of fresh air for me in terms of entertainment. I was so tired of western film at that point and it made me aware that there was so much more out there if I was willing to look for it. Nowadays, it hardly requires looking.
This was a big misjudgement in thinking that people cared more about the theatrical experience than just the consumption of the content. Going to the movies became a chore, which allowed for those "niche" theaters that sold tickets while allowing the specific seat to be selected, better experience of kicking out mobile device users, etc. That made movie going only tolerable for me, but still not required. Watching in the comfort of my home while avoiding crowds (even before covid) was well worth the smaller screen and less of an audio experience.
Sadly, it took a global pandemic for traditional studios to catch on to the simultaneous releases. Hopefully, they recognize that getting someone to watch at home doesn't mean that they prevented someone from seeing the theater, rather as someone that was not going to see it precisely because they weren't going to the theater and not seeing it at all (during those opening week numbers)
Also around that time, "wire cutters" were massing, pissed at the cable mentality of curation: watching what they offered, on the device they permitted, on the schedule they dictated, and also forced to pay for channels you didn't want. Bit Torrent and Netflix together offered a far more pleasant alternative.
It flummoxed Harvey Weinstein! May that creep rot in prison.
I like to think whoever received it kept it to perhaps, if the opportunity presented itself, make some cuts to Weinstein's masterpiece.
It's amazing how, once it gets some legs, it is so hard to find anything but the same repeated story.
In general the producers really did do their homework to capture the time and feel of the 1980s, instead of just shitting out low-effort vaporwave. And it's bored generation X/Xennial parents, you insensitive clod -- millennials were born too late to even remember half that stuff.
Even the Tandy 2000 wasn't shown completely accurately. It was shown with a monochrome monitor option, but the display was in color. And the font was wrong; this was the default Tandy 2000 font (it was reprogrammable, but almost nobody did that): https://int10h.org/oldschool-pc-fonts/fontlist/?4#tandy
There's a bit of wiggle room here for artistic license. "Just repeat to yourself it's just a show, I should really just relax..."
Geez, as someone who doesn't actively watch TV (whatever the tween children or my millennial wife is watching), you're making me feel even worse about wasting time slogging through the entirety of the most recent season.
People may also forget that Netflix and similar offered DVD rentals and purchases via mail prior to streaming. That's not to be underestimated in how important it was to a significant demographic, being able to access culture they otherwise would not have been able to due to cost or scarcity.
It's a good time for cultural accessibility.
Hollywood still gatekeeps.
I've been watching english subtitled shows for decades. Before high speed internet was affordable, people were sharing fan subbed anime. Dudes at university would show up with their RAIDs with multiple seasons worth of anime. Back then we still measured RAM in megabytes.
Things have only gotten easier to watch.
Then at some point everyone with an IP catalog started launching a streaming service and at the rate it’s going I might re-learn how piracy works because I value my own time enough to be pretty much over trying to figure out if my show du jour is on Disney Plus or Viacom Prime.
I don't want this to be a "kids today don't know how good they have it" post, but that's playing a role. However, that attitude is probably what's going to keep driving things to get even better.
For years before that, people were sharing fansubbed anime on VHS. There were networks of fansubbers and distributors sending tapes through the mail.
If Spotify and Steam have reduced music and game torrenting by 99%, Netflix & co. reduced it by much less than that.
Most of my non-technical friends pay for one service or maybe two, everything else is on Popcorn Time.
"Piracy is a service problem." — Gabe Newell
They don't need to. Clearly streaming services have been and continue to be successful. This is not a zero sum game. Nerds who hate paying for stuff will always exist, but most people aren't going to hack a device or even download Kodi to their Fire Stick. These people are satisfied.
The old school movie studios definitely care a lot because they hate innovation, and they've definitely failed.
> Most of my non-technical friends pay for one service or maybe two, everything else is on Popcorn Time.
Sorry, you're still posting on Hacker News which has certain implications regarding the people you like hanging out with. Your non-technical friends are still unusual.
Didn't watch it again until maybe a year ago when my wife wanted to watch it. She's gotten really into Studio Ghibli and we've been working our way through the catalog. Even so, I was actually still hesitant to watch it.
I found it much different than I remembered. Layered story with actual shades of gray that Hollywood isn't capable of producing. Only movie I can think of where there are multiple factions and none of them are clearly good or bad. Compelling narrative all around. It's genuinely a masterwork only outdone by Spirited Away.
Point of my story is, I wasn't ready for it, I don't know if America was.
Actually I feel like western movies and tv tends to be more morally ambiguous than anime. In terms of multiple factions where none are clearly good/bad, Game of Thrones comes to mind
From what I've experienced of anime, majority of them have a pretty straightforward protagonist v antagonist storylines. Notable exception: Death Note
[https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt0245429/]
Not too surprising for the US, which pretty much ignored electronic music, both domestic (except for NIN) and foreign (except for 'Autobahn'), until Prodigy arrived in 1996 with "Fat of the Land" (US#1??!!) and landed one more with 'Smack My Bitch Up'.
Even things traditionally not electronic like R&B and Hard Rock were significantly influenced by drum machines and synthesizers in the 80s. TR-808? Keytars?
The characters at the end are no longer in a place where they can go back to “the way things were” but somehow it’s okay. So there is this pain but in the end it’s ultimately cathartic and you feel joy and hope.
i liked mononoke, but it felt heavy-handed in comparison, so it doesn't rate as highly in my book. it would have rated way worse had disney gotten its way with it.
edit: totoro would be #2, kaguya and grave of the fireflies would be tied for #3/4, then howl's moving castle at #5, then ponyo, mononoke, and kiki's delivery service would be among the remaining top 10 spots for me.
Ponyo or Totoro would rank much higher for me. Ponyo is really smart in many aspects. The Tomb of fireflies is a terrible and depressing black hole, but maybe a necessary experience. Porco rosso is the opposite, light and very enjoyable.
In any case this article is related clearly with the fact that Mononoke is again broadcasted in the movie theaters just this week.
next to Mononoke and Nausicaä, sure
grave of the fireflies is heartwrenching for sure, and absolutely worth watching again (when you have tissues and a loved one to hug nearby).
Here's my list:
1. Nausicaa (Valley of the wind)
2. Luputa (Castle in the sky)
3. Mononokee
4. Porco Rosso (Awesome aviation themed adventure).
i haven't seen nausicaä yet, but all the ghibli films are great (except perhaps arrietty, as noted in a nearby comment). porco rosso was fun and more action oriented than most ghibli films. it's been a while since i've seen castle in the sky but it sits storywise between mononoke and howl's moving castle in my head.
A spoiled young girl must enter as a slave worker in a bath/massage club to repay their parents debt. She must work hard doing difficult and dirt chores while trying to find a way out. He cleans the body of a client plagued from a nasty contamination, and as reward receives a small gift that could help her to be free.
Meanwhile, she treats nicely a shy client and allow him in the building. The client soon gets obsessed with the girl and starts spending a lot of gold to pass more and more time with her.
Yep, is a film for children.
When the rich weirdo realizes is being blocked and distracted by the greedy staff, he has a tantrum, turns in a violent monster and starts destroying the place and eating alive anybody that stands in the path to her.
The girl flees, but finally decides to return to help him, the monster is appeased, they travel together and the character is finally rehabilitated far away from the bathhouse.
After a last chore, finally the girl befriends the madamme and is allowed to go and quit the bathhouse in good terms, see their parents again and keep with their former life. She is ordered to never tell anybody, never look back and forget all about the sordid place. Happy end.
Moral of the history: the solution to child abuse is hide it, never tell to anybody and pretend that nothing happened.
Powerful message for children, yep.
Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind and Castle in the Sky are the most similar in feeling to Princess Mononoke. High fantasy, adventure, against all odds. (This is my favorite batch of Ghibli / Miyazaki / Takahata films.)
Spirited Away is an otherworldly coming of age treasure that cannot be missed. Totoro and Kiki's Delivery Service feel similar. Whisper of the Heart is this too, just aimed a little older. (And if you like that, check out Your Name by Shinkai or Wolf Children by Hosoda - not Ghibli films, but very deserving of a watch if you like this sort of film.)
Grave of the Fireflies is a very poignant anti-war film.
FWIW, I bought the old Miramax domain name for Princess Mononoke and kept the website online [1]. It's one of my favorite films. I wish Miyazaki made more films like Mononoke and Nausicaa - they're sublime.
On a more serious note, the book is quite good too. The book doesn't describe the castle as a giant steampunk thing walking around in the hills. It's actually just a plain 4 sided stone building that hovers around a little over the ground, no legs. So in this regard the movie is better IMHO. But in the book there is another location the door opens to and the stuff we see in there changes the whole story. In the movie we spend some time trying to figure out what version of the characters, Howl especially, are the real version. The book turns this up further with the additional location.
At the end the take away is quite different between book and movie. Both good in their own ways.
I love the ending
As far as I am aware, most anime nerds say that Grave of the Fireflies is the best movie from Studio Ghibli (for this movie, Hayao Miyazaki was only producer and not director). But be aware that Grave of the Fireflies is a rather sad movie.
It was made together with My Neighbour Totoro as a double feature. Only Totoro could rescue me!
Actually that's a good way to think of it, compress SL into a anime length movie and you have the emotional hit of Grave.
But not for a second regrettable.
As sibling comment notes, have My Neighbor Totoro ready to go afterwards to put you back together.
It's Schindler's List in a few important ways. 1) it's about WWII, 2) It's a gut punch, and 3) It's one of the greatest movies you only need to see once, and likely will only want to watch once.
I've told the kids they can only watch that movie once they're old enough to drink.
If there was, wouldn't you want to know?
So, 6 months old? (When I grew up, whiskey was a common cure for toothache, gripe, or any other bother infants had...)
Spirited Away, Ponyo, Howl’s Moving Castle, and Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind.
I don’t know that I view movies as “best”, since those are all quite different stories.
That said, I've liked pretty much every film they've made except Kiki's Delivery Service (I found it a bit dull) and Howl's Moving Castle (it just didn't work for me). They're pretty much all worth watching at least once.
Porco Rosso seems to get ignored frequently. It’s fantastic as well.
Edit: Also, Jiji (Kiki's cat) played by Phil Hartman has a completely different character from Jiji in the Japanese version.
For a pre-teen audience, Nausicaä of the valley of the wind, Castle in the Sky, Totoro, basically all the stuff before Princess Mononoke are great films.
I see Princess Mononoke to be a film for people coming of age, where it's time to realize the binary view of the world is overly simplistic.
Just don't bother with the dubs. Hollywood just couldn't get the right voice actors to act with the right voice to fit the setting and the theme. For example, the main characters dub for Castle in the Sky felt older than the original (or Cantonese dub, which was my first introduction). Pazu was supposed to be an orphan, a child worker in a frigging mine. While the film doesn't directly call attention to that much, it hints at it by having the original voice to be too young to even crack yet.
No, no, no. That is exactly what children want to watch. It's their parents who don't want them to watch it. Kides themselves are all over this stuff and the moment they're old enough to get their hands on it, they binge on it.
Speaking as someone who once was a child (with a splatter-gore phase no less).
Of course the other ones mentioned in this topic are good too.
Even a bad Miyazaki movie is pretty good, but for me it didn't have what makes his other movies special. I'd recommend it only if a person absolutely can't, say, tolerate elements of the fantastical in their entertainment. The lead character is an engineer who makes planes, but the movie (understandably) doesn't really go into that part.
Mononoke is probably tied with Wind Rises for "most serious Miyazaki movie." which might make it a perfect starting point for some in the HN crowd.
Spirited Away is probably the closest to a universal crowd-pleaser?
The US has the ability to appeal to your base instinct instead of trying to reach your brain, it's striking !
Imagine big studios saying now they'll stop marvel movies, there d be a riot. I remember when the Inception + Shutter Island miracle happened and was reading Hollywood execs were flabbergasted and trying to formalize it so they could churn copies every few months.
There s nothing to do: they are private entreprises and they fit an addictive hole. Would be like trying to forbid beer because it s not as intellectual as cognac. I just feel like for some reason smaller markets do films differently because they just cant compete: Im French and live in Hong Kong, in both, local big budget blockbusters flop spectacularly because they feel too much like Ersatz (the CGI is years behind, the love story is under developed, the explosions are not well timed, the enemy is not as manichean, whatever), while smarter movies make us all proud "heh americans couldnt shit one like that, we're so special" :D
Other cultures have their thing too. Bollywood has dancing in everything which still doesn't make sense to me after watch a bunch of Bollywood movies. Korea has their K-Dramas. Every one is the same.
I'm only pointing out they are also pandering to their own fan bases and it can be just as formulaic as Hollywood. No need to put things on a pedestal.