[ken]

any hayao miyazaki fans here? i just saw a fansub of laputa: castle in the sky (ripped into 300kbps realvideo, no less) last night for the first time, and was blown away. in my opinion it was a lot more fun than the technically superior princess mononoke, and had more believable and likeable characters.

but what was incredible is the world-building skills miyazaki is renowned for. the attention to detail and his outlandish yet familiar creations are staggering!

very inspirational.

-Ken

[Lunatique]

Miyazaki's never made a bad film. From Naussica to the latest, he's always tip top.

My personal fav of Miyazaki's is probably Totoro.

[horstenpeter]

I love all (read: nothing but Princess Mononoke) that I ever got a chance to see by Miyazaki. It is making me mad. The stuff just doesn't make its way here. I want to see more, because Princess Mononoke is among my Top 5 favorite movies, and #1 on my list of animated movies.
Oh well. I actually got Laputa recently but I didn't yet get a chance to see it.

[ceenda]

I've been trying to get a copy of Laputa but it's simply not available anywhere in Europe. However, someone said that Disney might be doing something with it.

[christian cox]

I love Laputa and Princess Mononoke, just incredible films. I still need to see his other works. Hopefully I will do that soon.

[Pat]

Laputa is by far his best movie. Nausicaa a close second.

Notice any similarities in the plot of Laputa and Disney's Atlantis? Disney had originally intended to release Laputa months after the US dubbed release of Kiki. There's even an ad for it on the Kiki video. Of course, since they essentially stole the story for Atlantis right out of Laputa, I figure they delayed it's release until after their movie came out--and now it might not ever see the light of day.

Laputa was released here theatrically several years ago, using a weak dub mastered by Carl Macek. I know, because I was at the US opening in San Diego. It consisted of a run-down theater, a screen the size of large TV and about 6 other people. The true irony is that there's a bidding war right now for Miyazaki's latest film, Spirited Away. I hope they pay out the ass for it.

Interesting Laputa trivia: the Laputa robot design was actually taken from an old US Superman cartoon. Miyazaki seems to have an affinity for it for some reason --he's used it in some of his other animated works including one of the Lupin the Third episodes he directed.

-Pat

[ January 29, 2002: Message edited by: Pat ]

[Briareos]

nausicaa is my fav, laputa is good, but kiki's is my second fav

[ceenda]

I can't really be bothered waiting for Disney to give it a fluffy soundtrack and badly dubbed American voice-over. Gonna try and import the DVD version + English subtitles from Japan.

[ken]

after what disney did to mononoke, i'm not too crazy about a re-dubbed... anything. billy bob thornton was sooo badly cast. and in the disney dub of laputa they have mark hamill doing the bad guy, which i don't see happening.

dear me. must get round to seeing totoro, kiki, nausicaa...

-Ken

[Briareos]

yea ken, the 3 best! it only gets better from laputa!

Make sure you get fansubs or raw japanese on those though god forbid the domestic versions they got these days of those *puke*

[Shadow-X-]

Best movie "collectin" hands down. I have a bunch on video, in original japanese. Some are copies, from when I was a kid, and my bro who lives in Japan bought Princess Mononoke for me.
Man, for you people who dont know, these are the other movies, I'm not too updated with the newest ones, these are the one's I've seen, or know of (sorry if the english titles aren't correct, i dont like watching the english dubbings since the voices sound retarded compared to the original japanese, and plus, I can understand Japanese anyhow, why listen to the crappy english translations???):

- Tonari no Totoro (My neighbour Totoro)
- Majyo no Takkyu-bin (the Kiki one)
- Laputa
- Naussica
- Princess Mononoke
- Iranai no Buta (the pig guy one, dunno the english name)
- ARG! The violin player one... don't even know the japanese name for it...

I know there's a few more... personally, I like Laputa and Princess mononoke the best, the fantasy world that Miyazaki san creates is so surreal. I love em. And you know these movies are good, coming from a Japanese commenting on a japanese movie. I hate watching Dragon Ball or any other anime in english dub... although I admit, I might understand it better, but I hate the voices.... they don't depict the character properly. Maybe I'm just crazy.. I dunno.. anyhooooo, that's my two cents for ya (prolly less since its canadian currency.. haha)

[jr]

laputa was great! totoro was my favorite, but i really had alot of fun doing a series of paintings on nausicaa for class. here's one i post everywhere

[suny]

i have the japanese dvds of totoro and laputa. and yes, they have english caption.
for more infos:

http://www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/video/

S.

[Pat]

Shadow-X-, Kurenai no Buta is also known as the Crimson Pig, or Porcco Rosso. The Violin Player one is called Mimi wo Sumaseba, or in the US, Whisper of the Heart.

-Pat

[suny]

i saw mimi o sumaseba and pom poko last month (on a real movie screen !). mimi is charming, and the light is amazing: you can feel the warmth of the sun, and the coolness of the shadows. And pom poko is fun and smart.

But one of my favourite ghibli's movie is Yamada-kun, by takahata isao. It's beautiful, and very mature. (and it exists on dvd, with english captions, too, i recomand it !)

http://www.ghiblies.com/

S.

[Shadow-X-]

Pat - Thanks! LoL, I just noticed I wrote "Iranai no Buta", which if I translate, is "The Pig you don't want(or need)". hahaha. My engrish is getting rusty (check out www.engrish.com , you'll understand).
I havent seen pom poko yet.

[Briareos]

Pompoko is sort of the ass of Myazaki's films... But Whisper of the Heart kicks ass, the character development is insane, some of the best I have ever seen.

I'm looking forward to Spirited Away.

(I'm sticking with the english names, you show offs )

[ January 31, 2002: Message edited by: Briareos ]

[sensoryoverload]

Hello all! Have you guys heard of "Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi"? It's a new Miyasaki movie.

http://students.washington.edu/andylin/sen_vbr200k.wmv

It's gonna be good....

and since we're on the topic of kickass anime... http://www.spe.sony.com/cthv/metropolis/


{Edit} Just found out that the english name for that movie is "The Spiriting Away of Sen and Chihiro" or "Spirited Away" I guess Briareos beat me to it.... (Shirow rules by the way! Did you pick up GITS 2 yet?)

[ January 31, 2002: Message edited by: sensoryoverload ]

[Shadow-X-]

How did we all miss "Hotaru no Haka" ?!?!? That for sure, is a touching movie. It makes me wonder what it was like during WWII in Japan, if my grandmother was still alive, I would have asked her, but I only met her once when I went to Japan when I was 7ys old in 1990, and history was the least of my worries back then. I miss her. I wish I could have a real conversation with her instead of the irrelevant stuff I said when I was 7....

[Pat]

Actually, quite a large number of Studio Ghibli films were not written or directed by Miyazaki, including the already mentioned Pom Poko and Grave of the Fireflies. These were masterminded by Isao Takahata, the "other" guy at Studio Ghibli. For a complete filmography and breakdown of their individual contributions you should check here.

-Pat

[ January 31, 2002: Message edited by: Pat ]

[ceenda]

Hehe, look what just turned up today...

Going... going... gone.
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1508773914

[ceenda]

I particularly like this bit:

"(Subtitles may not read as spoken English)"

[the_monkey]

laputa was great, i loved the characters in that film...

its too bad that all miyazaki's characters look like the exact same characters from his other movies.