Porco Rosso is Miyazaki's best movie and, being about adapting to trauma (him being a pig is a metaphor for survivor's guilt changing him as a man, you midwits, not a curse from god) and solidarity in the face of worldly hardship, is slightly outside of his usual thematic wheelhouse of childlike pacifism and ecology which makes a welcome change. Spirited Away, for all its normie appeal, is also an excellent movie. Howl's Moving Castle is his least-greatest movie (maybe; The Wind Rises which is beautiful but has practically no central conflict and suffers the flaws of the mid-20th century Japanese literature it emulates, but the jury's still out because it hasn't been out for long enough) but gets an unfair rap from dumb yanks who expected another Mononoke, which while visually stunning has an overrated third act. The manga version of Nausicaä is his best work overall. Kaguya is Takahata's best and should have won the Oscar if Spirited Away got one, Yamadas was crap, Only Yesterday was impressive at the time but overrated in retrospect. Cagliostro is a middling as a Lupin III instalment, straying from the tone of the original property, but is one of the definitive adventure movies of all time. Trying to follow the CG trend will be the death of the studio. Ponyo is a Disney tier flick story-wise but achieves what it sets out to do very well and gets kudos for having a unique style, a worthy successor to Totoro. The Cat Returns is probably the best Ghibli film not directed or co-directed by either of the big two. Kiki's Delivery Service has the comfiest setting but is hampered the most by Miyazaki's no-script improvisational approach with its central conflict / character development totally fudged in the third act.
The Wind Rises was the first and favorite Ghibli movie i saw. For kids movies the rest ive seen are rly slow to pick up, takes like 3 attempts to finish them.
Jason Robinson
I never got why people say that Castle of Cagliostro isn't like the original Lupin III. Don't you know it's the same people who made it? Takahata and Miyazaki directed the first TV series in the 70s.
Eli Harris
>Porco Rosso is Miyazaki's best movie That's a weird way of spelling kiki
I mean the comics, but yeah I know they did the TV series
I can't deny it has rewatch value, it's a romantic tragedy to rival Mishima, but there's a glaring lack of insight into any sort of awareness of the consequences of war bar the poignant recognition that not a single original Zero survived the war in one line in the final scene which feels dishonest in a film that's ostensibly about the price of making one's dreams come true, I don't expect an angst-wank but it's a little too sanitised even for Miyazaki when you consider this is the same dude who drew those incredible scenes of Kushana watching her own troops being needlessly sacrificed by her brothers, and bio-engineered human clones gorily breaking down etc., earlier in his career
John Ramirez
Why does Pom Poko get so much hate? I thought it was a pretty witty take on the fantasy-realism niche, sorta like the Artemis Fowl books
Lincoln Richardson
>Kiki's Delivery Service >totally fudged in the third act Wrong, that is a perfect movie.
