Halfway through a Miyazaki festival....

[Mog Elffoe]

Be sure to stick around for Porco Rosso, Laputa, and Kiki's Delivery Service. Porco Rosso has a Castle of Cagliostro kinda vibe going for it. It's much more broad than the other films. Laputa has some of the best action sequences around. I fully plan on stealing stuff whole cloth from it for my Eberron game. I love all the airships in it and especially the robots that look like they were modeled after the ones in the Fleischer Superman cartoons from the 40s.

 

[Stormfalcon]

One thing that's being missed in the discussion of how accepted the spirits are in Totoro is the spiritualistic nature of Japan at the time of the story (just after WWII). Not to bring religion into the discussion, but the modernity and materialism that define's today's Japanese society hadn't taken hold as strongly then, and Shintoism and Buddhism still had a strong hold on the Japanese mindset (as opposed to the cafeteria spirituality of today's Japanese). It shouldn't be surprising to see the adults in Totoro being accepting of spirits in that light.

Again, I'm not meaning to turn this into a religious discussion, just pointing out why the adults weren't scared or surprised at the presence of spirits.

 

[WizarDru]

It shouldn't be surprising to see the adults in Totoro being accepting of spirits in that light.

Perhaps I'm misremembering, but doesn't the father mention at one point that he'd seen one of the local spirits when he was a boy? I also thought he specifically told Mei that he did believe in the spirits....and I never thought he was being patronizing.

To me, the great power of Miyazaki has been that he has the ability to make something that is child-like, without being child-ish...if you take my meaning.

hong, what was the complete lineup of films shown? Was it purely Miyazaki, or were other Ghibli artists showcased?

 

[hong]

Just the five mentioned above. See the website here:

http://www.madman.com.au/studioghibli/showcase.html

There's another set of Ghibli films which will be coming round later in the year, though.