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The two movies the author had never seen were two of my favorite films by Miyazaki that I watched in my formative years. Of course the acclaim always went to Nauiscaa, Spirited Away, and Princess Mononoke, but I've always adored Porco Rosso. The atmosphere of those tiny Adriatic islands and interwar Italian cities makes me nostalgic for a place I've never visited.

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I find Porco Rosso and Kiki’s Delivery Service nothing short of magical.

The sense of time and place in both movies is tremendous. Kiki's city is the kind of bustling, walkable place urbanists dream of, in its own era of can-do optimism mirroring the protagonist herself. Porco's setting is a little more melancholic, its picturesque villages bearing the memories both of simpler times and of past war, with the reconstruction of Porco's plane serving as a microcosm of the world around it.

I hope I live long enough to ask a VR device “Take me to Kiki’s city” and I get to step in to a world that absolutely resonates.

I say “live long enough” because it probably means waiting until AI can generate the whole experience including the character AI

It’s the one movie I’ve always wanted to live within. IIRC there’s supposed to be a Kiki land in the new Ghibli theme park…

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