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So I am watching them one by one since I first saw Howl's moving castle and realized he had other films made, so far I have seen "Spirited Away" in english unfortunately as I as a rule prefer subtitles with japanese language (I am used to reading the subtitles and watching at the same time to a matter of habbit now, even normal movies I prefer subtitles so I dont miss anything).
However I must say that Spirited Away had the best english voice acting I have seen in a VERY long time, gundam seed, naruto all had terrible voice acting in english, Gundam Wing, escaflowne, inu yasha all had acceptable and decent voice acting. The film itself to as well was breathtaking.
I saw Princess Mononoke, which to me was one of the best animated films. Ever. Nuff' Said, I saw it in Japanese although I hear the english is okay I may rewatch it in english.
Say Kiki's Flying Delivery service, it was okay the ending made me sad I cared for the characters but to me the series could have been better done as a 25 episode series. I liked it though my mind wondered at points but I liked it.
Currently watching my neighbour Tortoro, have only like 1 more movie remaining.
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It's always good to see somebody getting into Miyazaki's films. He's a certifiable genius, if you ask me.
But wait, you've seen Howl's Moving Castle, Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, Kiki's Delivery Service, and My Neighbor Totoro and you think you've only got one movie left?
You've still got:
Nausicaa (one of his first, and one of my favorites) Castle in the Sky Porco Rosso and Whisper of the Heart
(I may be missing one or two)
The last one (Whisper of the Heart) is quite a bit different. I believe he wasn't the director, but I think he did do the storyboards. It's a completely non-fantasy movie about a 13 or so year old girl in contemporary Japan. It's actually really good, but it's different from what you might think.
Still, check out those movies! Great stuff.
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Blayne Bradley
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Im still starting to run out, and the remaining movies are far older I think so I am slightely apprensive, I have a slight issue that once I see something that takes my breath away I get nervous about trying new stuff it really bugs that I seem to have this tick.
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I've seen most Miyazaki films and the english language dubbing is some of the best I've seen. I think it's much easier to dub an animated film and not lose any of the artistic value or quality of the film, and they've done a great job with Miyazki movies. I'll never watch a dubbed version of any live action films though.
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Miyazaki's newest film sounds interesting. No CGI, something to do with using watercolors, and the majority of it will take place at sea. It'll all be hand drawn. It's described as "an unusual visual style." And it'll take 20 months to make, slated for Summer 08 release.
I'm hooked. Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, Howl's Moving Castle, I'm sold on pretty much anything he makes without even seeing the trailer.
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Perfect Blue is from Satoshi Kon. Who also did Paprika, Paranoia Agent, Tokyo Godfathers, and so forth.
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Spirited Away is my favourite Miyazaki film followed closely by Totoro, Castle in the Sky and Mononoke.
I'm hesitant to watch Miyazaki's films in English (or Finnish for that matter) ever since I saw the English dub for Spirited Away. It completely took away one of my favourite details (and scenes) from the movie by adding a completely unnecessary piece of dialogue early on in the movie. I mean, I know that things are different in different cultures and some chances need to be made when changing a product to more represent the cultural traditions of the home country in the dub (such as adding comic Disney style one-liners to pretty much all anime dubs, the comedy tends to be more understated in the originals at least to my mind), but for that one particular chance in Spirited Away there was no reason, except perhaps the total failing to understand the movie from the part of the dubbers. I guess I'm just glad to having seen it in Japanese first.
The English dub doesn't ruin Spirited Away, but it does take away from the original, and that's why ever since then I've never watched any film dubbed again. (Well, except last Christmas because Mum made me to keep company to the rest of the family. If you ever wish to see a really badly made dub watch Over the Hedge in Finnish...)
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I quite liked Howl's moving castle, but i watched it a week or so after reading the book, so I kept getting annoyed at the simplifications Posts: 5700 | Registered: Feb 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Shanna: Perfect Blue is from Satoshi Kon. Who also did Paprika, Paranoia Agent, Tokyo Godfathers, and so forth.
He's probably now my favourite after Miyazaki I think. Millenium Actress is fantastic. Perfect Blue and Paprika as well and Tokyo Godfathers made me weepy.
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Generally, I think the English dub of Mononoke is better for an English viewer than the Japanese subtitled version is. The voice actors do a great job.
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While I too usually prefer subtitles to dubbing (and do, in Miyazaki's films) I agree with others who've pointed out that the dubbing in those films is excellent, and so is the voice-acting.
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I'll confess that, even though I will almost never watch an anime in English, because of the changes in the musical score, I will almost never watch Castle in the Sky in Japanese. The adjustments made for the English version are far more in line with our culture and make it considerably more accessible for me.
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quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: Im still starting to run out, and the remaining movies are far older I think so I am slightely apprensive, I have a slight issue that once I see something that takes my breath away I get nervous about trying new stuff it really bugs that I seem to have this tick.
Hey man, don't worry too much. I haven't seen Porco Rosso, so I can't really comment on that. And Whisper of the Heart is significantly different from any of his other works (but you would probably like it if you enjoyed Totoro). But you can't go wrong with Castle in the Sky or Nausicaa if you liked Miyazaki's other films. They're just as brilliant. Posts: 290 | Registered: Sep 2002
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I've recruited quite a few fans to Miyazaki and I'm so thankful for the wonderful dubbing. My friends weren't used to the subtitles and had trouble connecting emotionally with a Japanese voice so we'd watch each new movie with the dubbing first and then use the subtitles each time after.
Kon's movies are next on my recruiting list but I've only seen them with subtitles.
I saw "Kiki" first (with dubbing) and its still my favorite for that reason. But "Howl" is the overwhelming favorite with my friends. My roommate and I actually watched it twice in a row the first time she saw it.
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Nothing like gathering around the TV every Christmas, popping in Grave of the Fireflies, and basking in its warm, family-friendly glow to really bring everybody together.
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PC: Maybe that's why I've been holding off on that one. I'll give it to her when she's older with a warning that it's VERY sad and she should only watch it when she's prepared to be sad.
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I first saw Grave of the Fireflies when I was about 13. I was very, very sad for about a week afterwards. Princess Mononoke is my all-time favorite, but I love pretty much anything Miyazaki Posts: 349 | Registered: Jul 2006
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I liked Spirited Away, but I could never understand what was so great about Howl's Moving Castle. I just didn't like it that much (I don't remember why, it's been awhile). But so many other people loved it, including OSC.
As for Grave of the Fireflies, I couldn't get through it. It wasn't so much the devastating sadness of it, it was a combination of sadness + randomness + weirdly unemotional characters. I can't really explain the feeling I had, I just felt so totally weirded out that I had to stop watching. It just felt wrong.
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Blayne Bradley
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I just say Naussica, kinda saddened as like Kiki I think it could have done well with its own anime series 25 or 50 episodes as they left it somewhat unexplained how they are going to remove the poison from the top soil. Now for the next one.
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Blayne Bradley
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Oh and I finished Totoro, eeeeh, its an okay film I liked it but it seemed to lack a real story. Its like here's a Totoro, here's some lovable characters and works well as one of those stories where its just about life and whatnot and didnt make me sad. But it just wasn't interesting to me, kinda like how House can acknowledge a average medical case but just isn't interested in it, am I making sense?
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I bought Howl's Moving Castle the first chance I got. I noticed that it had a French dubbing option. I don't speak French, but I watched it with French dubbing and English subtitles the first time through, and I loved it.
I found that the English voice actors pulled me out of the experience (perhaps because I recognized them?)
I feel that the French language beautifully fits the atmosphere and style of Howl's Moving Castle, and when I introduce it to people, that's the version I use. I recommend the French dubbing to anyone who hasn't tried it yet.
I'd also be interested in how someone who speaks French feels about the dubbing.
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quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: I just say Naussica, kinda saddened as like Kiki I think it could have done well with its own anime series 25 or 50 episodes as they left it somewhat unexplained how they are going to remove the poison from the top soil. Now for the next one.
We were actually discussing this very thing in another thread awhile ago. Nausicaa is actually based on a manga that Miyazaki wrote. It's supposed to be really good, and cover a lot of the questions raised by the movie. I'm definitely thinking of looking into it.
As for the dubbing, I've never had any problem with the English dubs for Miyazaki films. I've always felt like they're really well done. And it's always a treat to here the likes of Patrick Stewart, Christian Bale, Billy Crystal, Lauren Bacall, etc., in these movies. Heck, I think even Mark Hamill of all people made an appearance in Nausicaa.
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Huh, I've seen all of Miyazaki's films except for Whisper of the Heart. Who'd a thunk? My favorite is Spirited Away, subtitled. It just seems to draw me into its fantasy more completely than the others. I saw Castle in the Sky way way back in middle school, long before I saw any of the others, and some of the imagery really stuck with me.
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Blayne Bradley
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which film had Patrick stewart in it?
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Sophie watched "Howl's Moving Castle" with us last night, in Japanese. She loved it, and not just because she shares a name with the female lead. Her observation: "This is a very pretty movie. Look at all the colors."
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Ok, usually I try not to compare movies with their source material, if they have any. A movie must be able to stand on its own without reference to the book or comic it comes from.
That being said, I read the Naussica manga before I saw the movie, and couldn't keep it out of my head. The voice acting in the Naussica movie was great, and Naussica's character was as lovely and admirable as ever, but everything else about the movie sucked. The manga was a huge, epic, sweeping story with an ending that made me want to joyfully weep. The movie just climaxed with some dumb fight scene. It sucked all the life out of the story, and frankly, I wish the movie hadn't been made.
Otherwise, Miyazaki's stuff is gold.
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Oh, for those who haven't read the Naussica manga, do so. I'd say it is the best thing Miyazaki has every produced, including the Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away movies.
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I've only read the beginning of the Nausicaa manga, but I would agree that the movie lacked in the magic other Miyazaki films have - it felt rather rushed, a bit like a lite version of Princess Mononoke. I have greatly enjoyed the manga so far though.
About Howl's Moving Castle, one thing I've always admired in Miyazaki's movies is how effortlessly he makes you care for his main characters and wish good things will happen to them - and how well he brings out the fact that his characters also care and love each other. In Howl he was able to create a great feeling of family with the bunch living in the castle, but I never really felt any connection between Sophie and Howl. Like the scene where Sophie travels to Howl's childhood which should have been quite emotional really wasn't for me. Now, I still consider Howl's Moving Castle to be a great film (and haven't read the original book) but I can sort of see why others wouldn't like it... The war stuff is also all over the place, and doesn't really make much sense. So I consider it to be a flawed masterpiece.
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I had read and loved Howl's Moving Castle before I saw the Miyazaki movie, and so I was disappointed although I usually love all his movies.
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I read Howl's Moving Castle long before I ever saw the movie, since I've been a Dianna Wynne Jones fan since I was about 10. If you watch that movie expecting a "faithful" representation of the book, you'll be disappointed, for sure. But when it really comes down to it, he really just took the basic source material and made a movie with his own ideas. I think it stands on it's own, and I love it. Maybe as much as I loved the original book.
Anyway, I'm definitely going to have to get those Nausicaa mangas now. My library has the four "Perfect" collections. Are those any good? I believe I read that there are several collections/translations. And do those four collections contain ALL of them?
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I just looked at Amazon.com, and all of their Naussica covers are different than mine. They have a book they are calling "Volume 6" which features a reversed version of my "Volume 4."
The series I have clearly ends in "Volume 5" - the story is completely over and everything is wrapped up. So I'm assuming that the editions Amazon is selling are very different from mine.
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quote:...how they are going to remove the poison from the top soil.
I can't say I was dissatisfied with the film version of the story, because it's actually one of the first movies I ever remember seeing. My parents had it and a bunch of Donald Duck stuff on one VHS tape, and they had apparently recorded it from TV. Hell, I can still remember the way 'Warriors of the Wind' was written on the label!
Strange sneak-up memory. I only ever read the manga, like...oh, geeze, probably 10-15 years after I saw the film, and they do indeed leave quite a lot out. And bear in mind I'm not talking about the 2005 version, either. This was the initial dubbed version, and if it weren't buried in memories I would shudder away from it like a vampire from garlic:)
SPOILERS
But even in that version, the way the poison is removed from the soil is mentioned, somewhat: the so-called 'Toxic Jungle' is actually toxic because of the incredibly high concentration of pollutants, particularly in the water and soil. The Jungle, over a course of years, purifies the environment it lives on, and in fact Nausicaa discovered that if you took a plant from the Jungle and used good soil and water for it, it was not poisonous at all.
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I think the copies at my library are all "reversed" meaning you read the book from left to right, instead of the original Japanese way. Hm.
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Wow, you've seen the Warriors of the Wind version? We'd like to find one of those to show in anime club on our bad anime night.
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I think I read that they were so displeased with the cuts and changes they made for the Warriors of the Wind version, that when the American producer wanted to make some cuts on Princess Mononoke, Studio Ghibli sent them an actual katana with a message that said "No Cuts".
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I watched Princess Mononoke the day before yesterday for the first time. I enjoyed it very much! I like the Jungle Book reference of being raised by wolves. I guess if any child is abandoned in a jungle/forest, their best bet is to be left near a pack of wolves.
Out of curiosity, I was reading about how they mixed hand drawn animation with computer rendering in Mononoke, which I think blended in that movie really well. I'm assuming that Miyazaki used that technique for many of his other movies, like Howl, and Spirited Away, since all the huge machines seem like they'd be overly-tedious to redraw.
I agree with Snail, Miyazaki easily draws you into caring for the main characters, and very close to the beginning. He does it well, even with or without a face-paced, dramatic action sequence as the opener.
I had no idea what Howl would be about, I had rented it because I had heard it was good. Coincidently, I had watched it for the first time with my Grandmother which, for those who have seen it would understand, was largely apropos. She absolutely loved it, and so did I.
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I think I read that they were so displeased with the cuts and changes they made for the Warriors of the Wind version, that when the American producer wanted to make some cuts on Princess Mononoke, Studio Ghibli sent them an actual katana with a message that said "No Cuts".
That is the most awesome thing I have heard in... a month? A year? Maybe forever.
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quote:Originally posted by aragorn64: I think I read that they were so displeased with the cuts and changes they made for the Warriors of the Wind version, that when the American producer wanted to make some cuts on Princess Mononoke, Studio Ghibli sent them an actual katana with a message that said "No Cuts".
A KATANA! I thought that said KATAKANA I wish I had one of those! That is soooo cool!
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Yup. You can find the reference to it on Wiki.
-----
And yeah Fugu, heh. I saw the Warriors of the Wind version, although because it was recorded I have no memory of seeing the truly awful cover art for it.
It was probably the first mostly foreign-influenced story I'd ever experienced, certainly the first one I remember experiencing. By the time I got older, though, it had so thoroughly infiltrated my kiddy brain that I didn't notice how bad it was.
Still don't, damnit! Even though the 2005 release is much better, and the subtitled is better still.
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quote:I'm hesitant to watch Miyazaki's films in English (or Finnish for that matter) ever since I saw the English dub for Spirited Away. It completely took away one of my favourite details (and scenes) from the movie by adding a completely unnecessary piece of dialogue early on in the movie.
Hey, can you tell me what the change was? I'm curious. Or what scene it's in and I can watch it for myself.
Posts: 8741 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:I'm hesitant to watch Miyazaki's films in English (or Finnish for that matter) ever since I saw the English dub for Spirited Away. It completely took away one of my favourite details (and scenes) from the movie by adding a completely unnecessary piece of dialogue early on in the movie.
Hey, can you tell me what the change was? I'm curious. Or what scene it's in and I can watch it for myself.
OK. WARNING: Slight spoilers for Spirited Away.
When Chihiro sees Haku the dragon attacked by the paper dragons she yells his name. Now, in the original Japanese version this is the first time she makes the connection between Haku and the dragon, and thus realizes they are the one and a same. It's been a while since I've seen the movie, but it goes something like this: she yells Haku, then gets this "OMG, Haku's a dragon" expression realizing she's just recognized who the dragon is and then goes on to help him.
In the English dub this effect is completely ruined by having her say something akin to "Oh, Haku's a dragon" when she sees the dragon above the bridge earlier on in the movie. In the original version there is no dialogue in this place.
As said, I don't think the English dub ruins the movie as a whole, and I don't think this is the most important scene in the film, but it was a scene I definitely noticed and found cool when seeing the film for the first time (in Japanese), as I like the idea of recognizing those you love no matter their transformation. And I can't really see any justification as to why this particular scene was ruined by the dubbers.
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They did something simular in Kiki's Delivery Service by making the cat talk at the end or adding extra dialogue. That's why i like the Japanese versions better.
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