That Animation Obsessive article kind of gets to the bottom of why the stereotype of Ghibli as cozy, fluffy fairy tales has always bugged me. Not that they aren't enchanting movies, and not that Miyazaki doesn't already have a solid reputation as a curmudgeon (plenty of memes out there contrasting him with Junji Ito). But underneath all that, especially Nausicaä, is the kind of person who has definitely read some 70's Metal Hurlant in his life. There's a clear Moebius influence in the Nausicaä manga (he also comes up a lot in Naoki Urasawa's Manben), and the concept itself is built from ideas for a scrapped adaptation of a Richard Corben story.
On that note, when I first saw the original theatrical trailers for Nausicaä on the DVD (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTdWunf34Uk), the music reminded me more than anything of every 70's and 80's SFF book cover and movie poster I've ever seen.
yeah I also find this frustrating; for me it's very parallel to the way people are about Ursula Le Guin. It's like Miyazaki is everybody's cranky grandpa. And of course I don't want to write posts that are like "here's the dark heart of My Neighbor Totoro they don't want you to see." But while Totoro is not "dark"… it _is_ about two girls trying to cope with the fact that their mom might be dying. I have definitely cried watching Totoro.
I have never read any Metal Hurlant… I'll have to add it to my list…
I haven't either, but I think if you're familiar with Heavy Metal, you're probably familiar with Metal Hurlant's basic vibe. I'm definitely overdue on reading anything by Moebius (other than his Silver Surfer comic from the 80s), and Corben is easily one of the most un-Ghibli artists I could possibly imagine.
I found a quote earlier where Miyazaki says he admires Venice because it keeps sinking, but the people keep living their lives anyway. When I'm not on my phone I'll find the link. But I think that's the secret sauce to his stories more than any hidden darkness. It's perseverance that matters.
That said, I wouldn't be surprised if Miyazaki secretly longs to cut loose and adapt one of the edgier Dangerous Visions stories.
I love this film (as do my children) but I think you get at its limitations very nicely. I find the explanations of the science lab and her discovery of the solution too glib; but her plant lab is one of the prettiest scenes in Ghibli, a bit like the bedroom in Howl and the forest in Monoke.
I didn't watch any of these movies as a kid, which I feel is too bad. At least through Kiki's Delivery Service I would have loved all of them as a child. (I probably would not have gotten Porco Rosso and Mononoke would have been way too scary.) Your kids are lucky!
My son loved Kiki and Totoro, but once we went to a dinner party where he was the only kid. The host promised to get a DVD for him to watch and picked Spirited Away, which was not a success and in fact upset him so much that we had to leave before dessert. But I loved it!
Mononoke was too scary and they didn’t really get Rosso! Totoro, Ponyo, Kiki, and a few others have been magical. I decided to indoctrinate them with Ghibli when they were little so they would learn good taste.
I support not ending the year on Grave of the Fireflies and also you should totally read Dune. I read it as an empty-headed 14-year-old so I was extremely uncritical and I remember thinking it was like "smart Star Wars" lol. I am much more critical now but I still love it, it's so fascinating to dissect.
one thing I find endearing about Dune is that almost everybody I know who is very into Dune or has at some time been into Dune says something like "okay so Dune is not good. that said it is also the best thing ever—"
Incidentally, before you get to Spirited Away, you should check out The Village Beyond the Mist, by Sachiko Kashiwaba, which is promoted in both America and Japan as an inspiration. You can definitely see some of its fingerprints on the movie.
I sort of have to read Dune for the book because it's a big deal, I've just started it a few times without getting very far… sometimes you just need the magic eight ball to tell you want to do.
Yeah, just read it. At least you won't be reading it in the 70s when you're a teen and it first comes out, and you're very impressionable, so you should be OK.
I agree that Mononoke is a better movie than Nausicaa, but I love looking at the world of Nausicaa in motion. The sea of decay, the little waterworks she has in her castle to grow plants, her maneuvering her glider.
The manga ending is so powerful to me as a rejection of what is still the latent ideology of our civilization: that our bright minds will figure it all out, that whatever bad happens will be a transitory stage necessary for the unfolding of a richer and superior age, that it would be wasteful to throw away all we've built that has borne us here. It's a very serious rejection that comes after the exploration of a lot of perspectives and real pain, it doesn't feel cheaply antinomian or sentimental.
So many great moments in the back half of the manga too, like her sojourn in the cottage and her befriending the worm-handlers, Kushana and Kurotawa's arcs being carried to the end. I want to reread it now, thanks for the post!
The worm-handlers are amazing—so creepy but then effectively humanized.
After reading the comments, I am thinking that another thread from Cagliostro to Nausicaä to Castle in the Sky has to do with a relationship with the past, maybe in particular an idea that if you've inherited a situation, you are obligated to see it through. Both Cagliostro and Nausicaä (manga) have scenes in which the heroine is told (and agrees) that her hands are not clean, so to go on is just vanity.
Nausicaä as a heroine does feel tremendous and real obligations to others, but she does not feel them to a grand plan put in motion in the past which views everyone brought into existence along the way as disposable. Thinking about it the way you've put it, the belief rejected is partly that only the past and the future really count. And she's like—no.
I think one thing Nausicaa’s manga does that its movie mostly doesn’t is destabilize everything we might otherwise take for granted: the forest (sea of corruption) is a human creation, humans are not really human, the god warrior is a child, etc. It really feels like the manga is Miyazaki’s attempt to test the limits of existentialism in a world where everything is the product of some other human’s project yet where nothing ends up being fixed or simple—nothing’s exactly what you think it is. Overall it’s a kind of pessimism about the past being able to offer any useful framework for the present or future? It’s bleak but very beautiful, and which feels very much in contrast to the role the prophecy plays in the movie, which Miyazaki has said he intentionally kept simpler.
One thought about not learning from the past is that Nausicaä is warned twice that people who have tried to take the path she's taking have ended up worse than before because they've become so disgusted with human stupidity. But she persists anyway.
Related to the obscene quote you have, I recently found this other one from Anno while looking up stuff about Gundam:
“I say this a lot, but he’s [Miyazaki] acting very presumptuous. With Tomino-san’s works it feels like [Tomino himself] is there dancing naked, and I love that! (Clenching his fist) With Miya-san’s recent works it feels like, “You’re pretending to be naked, but you’re really wearing underwear, aren’t you!” and I absolutely hate that. I’m like, “Take off that last piece!” (Already getting carried away)”
my belief that anno should only make godzilla movies now is reaffirmed except i don't just mean "instead of bad eva movies" but "instead of any form of public speech, at all"
I feel like the contrast between IRL Anno and what you might imagine he's like just from watching his stuff is particularly strong. Not that the composite image from Gunbuster, Eva, Nadia, etc is like "brooding serious guy," but more "somebody whose go-to metaphor isn't 'take off your underwear.'" The manga by his wife had me going "damn… this man is a NERD."
That Animation Obsessive article kind of gets to the bottom of why the stereotype of Ghibli as cozy, fluffy fairy tales has always bugged me. Not that they aren't enchanting movies, and not that Miyazaki doesn't already have a solid reputation as a curmudgeon (plenty of memes out there contrasting him with Junji Ito). But underneath all that, especially Nausicaä, is the kind of person who has definitely read some 70's Metal Hurlant in his life. There's a clear Moebius influence in the Nausicaä manga (he also comes up a lot in Naoki Urasawa's Manben), and the concept itself is built from ideas for a scrapped adaptation of a Richard Corben story.
On that note, when I first saw the original theatrical trailers for Nausicaä on the DVD (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTdWunf34Uk), the music reminded me more than anything of every 70's and 80's SFF book cover and movie poster I've ever seen.
yeah I also find this frustrating; for me it's very parallel to the way people are about Ursula Le Guin. It's like Miyazaki is everybody's cranky grandpa. And of course I don't want to write posts that are like "here's the dark heart of My Neighbor Totoro they don't want you to see." But while Totoro is not "dark"… it _is_ about two girls trying to cope with the fact that their mom might be dying. I have definitely cried watching Totoro.
I have never read any Metal Hurlant… I'll have to add it to my list…
I haven't either, but I think if you're familiar with Heavy Metal, you're probably familiar with Metal Hurlant's basic vibe. I'm definitely overdue on reading anything by Moebius (other than his Silver Surfer comic from the 80s), and Corben is easily one of the most un-Ghibli artists I could possibly imagine.
I found a quote earlier where Miyazaki says he admires Venice because it keeps sinking, but the people keep living their lives anyway. When I'm not on my phone I'll find the link. But I think that's the secret sauce to his stories more than any hidden darkness. It's perseverance that matters.
That said, I wouldn't be surprised if Miyazaki secretly longs to cut loose and adapt one of the edgier Dangerous Visions stories.
Whoops, forgot about it. Here it is: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2011/mar/29/japan-animation-natural-disaster-sotinel
I love this film (as do my children) but I think you get at its limitations very nicely. I find the explanations of the science lab and her discovery of the solution too glib; but her plant lab is one of the prettiest scenes in Ghibli, a bit like the bedroom in Howl and the forest in Monoke.
I didn't watch any of these movies as a kid, which I feel is too bad. At least through Kiki's Delivery Service I would have loved all of them as a child. (I probably would not have gotten Porco Rosso and Mononoke would have been way too scary.) Your kids are lucky!
My son loved Kiki and Totoro, but once we went to a dinner party where he was the only kid. The host promised to get a DVD for him to watch and picked Spirited Away, which was not a success and in fact upset him so much that we had to leave before dessert. But I loved it!
Mononoke was too scary and they didn’t really get Rosso! Totoro, Ponyo, Kiki, and a few others have been magical. I decided to indoctrinate them with Ghibli when they were little so they would learn good taste.
I support not ending the year on Grave of the Fireflies and also you should totally read Dune. I read it as an empty-headed 14-year-old so I was extremely uncritical and I remember thinking it was like "smart Star Wars" lol. I am much more critical now but I still love it, it's so fascinating to dissect.
one thing I find endearing about Dune is that almost everybody I know who is very into Dune or has at some time been into Dune says something like "okay so Dune is not good. that said it is also the best thing ever—"
That's the most fun kind of fandom, where the creator's lows are just as interesting as the highs. See also: Stephen King, Hideo Kojima.
I can never hate a series that has deep dissection of political machinations on one hand, and the hypnobong on the other.
Incidentally, before you get to Spirited Away, you should check out The Village Beyond the Mist, by Sachiko Kashiwaba, which is promoted in both America and Japan as an inspiration. You can definitely see some of its fingerprints on the movie.
I sort of have to read Dune for the book because it's a big deal, I've just started it a few times without getting very far… sometimes you just need the magic eight ball to tell you want to do.
Yeah, just read it. At least you won't be reading it in the 70s when you're a teen and it first comes out, and you're very impressionable, so you should be OK.
I agree that Mononoke is a better movie than Nausicaa, but I love looking at the world of Nausicaa in motion. The sea of decay, the little waterworks she has in her castle to grow plants, her maneuvering her glider.
The manga ending is so powerful to me as a rejection of what is still the latent ideology of our civilization: that our bright minds will figure it all out, that whatever bad happens will be a transitory stage necessary for the unfolding of a richer and superior age, that it would be wasteful to throw away all we've built that has borne us here. It's a very serious rejection that comes after the exploration of a lot of perspectives and real pain, it doesn't feel cheaply antinomian or sentimental.
So many great moments in the back half of the manga too, like her sojourn in the cottage and her befriending the worm-handlers, Kushana and Kurotawa's arcs being carried to the end. I want to reread it now, thanks for the post!
The worm-handlers are amazing—so creepy but then effectively humanized.
After reading the comments, I am thinking that another thread from Cagliostro to Nausicaä to Castle in the Sky has to do with a relationship with the past, maybe in particular an idea that if you've inherited a situation, you are obligated to see it through. Both Cagliostro and Nausicaä (manga) have scenes in which the heroine is told (and agrees) that her hands are not clean, so to go on is just vanity.
Nausicaä as a heroine does feel tremendous and real obligations to others, but she does not feel them to a grand plan put in motion in the past which views everyone brought into existence along the way as disposable. Thinking about it the way you've put it, the belief rejected is partly that only the past and the future really count. And she's like—no.
I think it’s fairly consistent in Ghibli that the hero/heroine has to define themselves with and against the tradition as it were.
I think one thing Nausicaa’s manga does that its movie mostly doesn’t is destabilize everything we might otherwise take for granted: the forest (sea of corruption) is a human creation, humans are not really human, the god warrior is a child, etc. It really feels like the manga is Miyazaki’s attempt to test the limits of existentialism in a world where everything is the product of some other human’s project yet where nothing ends up being fixed or simple—nothing’s exactly what you think it is. Overall it’s a kind of pessimism about the past being able to offer any useful framework for the present or future? It’s bleak but very beautiful, and which feels very much in contrast to the role the prophecy plays in the movie, which Miyazaki has said he intentionally kept simpler.
One thought about not learning from the past is that Nausicaä is warned twice that people who have tried to take the path she's taking have ended up worse than before because they've become so disgusted with human stupidity. But she persists anyway.
i am feeling the third footnote this Saturday morning.
not true… you are taking care of two very important cats!
Related to the obscene quote you have, I recently found this other one from Anno while looking up stuff about Gundam:
“I say this a lot, but he’s [Miyazaki] acting very presumptuous. With Tomino-san’s works it feels like [Tomino himself] is there dancing naked, and I love that! (Clenching his fist) With Miya-san’s recent works it feels like, “You’re pretending to be naked, but you’re really wearing underwear, aren’t you!” and I absolutely hate that. I’m like, “Take off that last piece!” (Already getting carried away)”
do we think hideaki anno has at some point considered sending this link to miyzaki with "it's you" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJF2VT-ymjM
my belief that anno should only make godzilla movies now is reaffirmed except i don't just mean "instead of bad eva movies" but "instead of any form of public speech, at all"
I’m sympathetic to such a view… except this quote is from 1993, and then we wouldn’t have gotten Evangelion!
A lot of these interviews with anime creators are entertaining, but whenever you get a couple of them together, it quickly becomes locker room talk
I feel like the contrast between IRL Anno and what you might imagine he's like just from watching his stuff is particularly strong. Not that the composite image from Gunbuster, Eva, Nadia, etc is like "brooding serious guy," but more "somebody whose go-to metaphor isn't 'take off your underwear.'" The manga by his wife had me going "damn… this man is a NERD."