Club Ghibli: Further Reading

[Diddy]

OK so this really IS the last thread for Club Ghibli - though I'd still love to hear from the Ghiblets about their film ranks in the After Party thread!

In Club Ghibli we covered the 23 movies in the Studio Ghibli canon to date - BUT there are other pre-Ghibli or otherwise Ghibli-adjacent movies out there, so I wanted to give them a bit of a shout-out. I have a few on DVD too so I'm going to give them an airing in the next few weeks. Let me know if you watch/watched them and what you thought.

Pre-Ghibli:

There were a few Hayao Miyazaki director credits before the Studio was established (technically Nausicaa is one of them but it had the core team together so it's usually counted in the canon.

The Castle of Cagliostoro (1979) - released in the Ghibli DVD collection, unnumbered I think, but Miyazaki's directorial debut film. Starring famous master-thief Lupin III from the long running series of anime, TV and movies.

The Great Adventure of Horus, Prince of the Sun (1968) - Isao Takahata's directorial debut. I think I've seen this ...?

Panda go Panda (1972) - Two half-hour films directed by Takahata and written by Miyazaki, about a curiously Totoro-esque panda

Jarinko Chie (1981) - Takahata directed this film about a small girl who helps out her drunk Yakuza father in Osaka

Gauche the Cellist (1982) - Another Takahata directed movie, about a failed cellist getting help from animals to get better, with a Beethoven soundtrack.

TV series:

Lots of pre-Ghibli TV credits for Miyazaki and Takahata, including famous works such as "Heidi, Girl of the Alps", "Future Boy Conan", "Lupin III", "Anne of Green Gables" and "Sherlock Hound"

Also, an actual Studio Ghibli series, "Ronja, the Robber's daughter", directed by Goro Miyazaki.

Also oddly but somehow not surprisingly, "The Story of Yanagawa's Canals", a Takahata-directed documentary about actual canals in Fukuoka. No animation, just that.

Crossovers & the extended universe:

Probably the most famous collaboration is Ghibli's work with Michael Dudok du Wit on "The Red Turtle" (2016) and bagged an Animated Feature Oscar nomination.

When Ghibli seemed to be closing its doors, Studio Ponoc, with many animators from Ghibli, which has released two movies so far, "Mary & The Witch's Flower" (2017) and "Modest Heroes" (2018), with a third, "The Imaginary", in the works.

On top of all this, there is the "Ni no Kuni" video game RPG series, made with Level-5 (I think there was a movie about that too), various specially-produced commercials and music videos, as well as the short movies shown exclusively in the Studio Ghibli Museum in Mitaka, Tokyo (and seemingly nowhere online). I managed to go there 3 times, annoyingly I saw one movie twice - one was about a lost dog, and another was a Totoro sequel(?!) which included various Catbus variants and a CAT TRAIN.


I know all this is a LOT, but I wanted somewhere to put it all, and any discoveries my dear Ghiblets uncover.

It's an all-you-can-eat buffet of cold cuts, so have your fill!

 

[Diddy]

I wonder if anyone here has watched ANYTHING on that list Well, it might attract some Ghibli nerds one day.

Anyway I watched Castle of Cagliostoro, probably for the first time since it came out on DVD in the UK (15 years?!), and it happily stands up VERY nicely!

It's as much a Miyazaki work as the others visually - story-wise it had to fit into an established Lupin III universe, but it showed the characters very efficiently without really having to explain anything, and it was easy to be on his side from the get-go, even the police inspector was sympathetic. The supporting cast of the baron and Clarisse were a bit generic (which is sort of a letdown considering those were the only original characters). The henchmen with the metal fingers were though

Visually stunning, the castle complex straight out of evil San Marino, the auto-gyro (of course Miyazaki needs a flying machine), the clock tower. All superbly done on a skinny budget.
It felt like a slightly more noble version of a 70s Bond movie that felt like it had stakes but kept heart and humour firmly in the mix. The 70s spy music too, I didn't know I wanted it!

Definitely recommended, it would have a worthy honorary spot in the canon.

8/10

 

[Peekaboo]

Cagliostro is a 10/10 caper, but then I used to watch Lupin the anime as a kid and LOVED it so I'm biased.

There's also a series of short stories called "Ghiblies" which is technically part of the canon but I've never watched.

I've seen Horus and Gauche which are fantastic films, and Panda go Panda is also cute. The Red Turtle was fantastic, a bit un-Ghibli in certain aspects but in others very similar so I can see why they would have accepted it as part of their family.

As I kid, one of my earliest memories is begging my mum to take me to a café so we could watch the episode in Heidi where Clara walks again Anne of Green Gables and Sherlock Hound were also shown regularly on TV on Saturday mornings - I feel so lucky that this was my anime school :_)

Above all, Future Boy Conan is INDISPENSABLE for anyone who likes Ghibli and Miyazaki. It's seriously incredible, exciting, perfectly paced and it tells a beautiful story. It has all the Miyazaki tropes too! Diddy you must watch if you haven't.

 

[Peekaboo]

Oh and Ni no Kuni was a fucking disappointment. The Ghibli involvement amounted to a few cutscenes and the music of Joe Hisaishi, but the gameplay was a bit pedestrian and in the end it didn't have much charm.

 

[Diddy]

Cagliostro is a 10/10 caper, but then I used to watch Lupin the anime as a kid and LOVED it so I'm biased.

There's also a series of short stories called "Ghiblies" which is technically part of the canon but I've never watched.

I've seen Horus and Gauche which are fantastic films, and Panda go Panda is also cute. The Red Turtle was fantastic, a bit un-Ghibli in certain aspects but in others very similar so I can see why they would have accepted it as part of their family.

As I kid, one of my earliest memories is begging my mum to take me to a café so we could watch the episode in Heidi where Clara walks again Anne of Green Gables and Sherlock Hound were also shown regularly on TV on Saturday mornings - I feel so lucky that this was my anime school :_)

Above all, Future Boy Conan is INDISPENSABLE for anyone who likes Ghibli and Miyazaki. It's seriously incredible, exciting, perfectly paced and it tells a beautiful story. It has all the Miyazaki tropes too! Diddy you must watch if you haven't.

You were in deep!! My first contact with Ghibli was buying knockoff VCDs on eBay in university after Spirited Away got the Oscar

I don't know why I missed Ghiblies off the list, I think there are a looooot of short films though. I have actually seen Ghiblies Pt 2, it was included on the Cat Returns DVD I got off eBay too, I don't remember much apart from a curry-eating scene?

 

[Diddy]

Oh and Ni no Kuni was a fucking disappointment. The Ghibli involvement amounted to a few cutscenes and the music of Joe Hisaishi, but the gameplay was a bit pedestrian and in the end it didn't have much charm.

Yeah I have it on my to-play list on switch after never getting far on Xbox360 - all I remember is that horrid little sidekick with a cock nose and piercing

 

[Peekaboo]

WATCH FUTURE BOY CONAN!

 

[Diddy]

WATCH FUTURE BOY CONAN!

I just need to work out HOW

I downloaded that Ronja series too and I'm not exactly FROTHING to start it

 

[Peekaboo]

I downloaded it off that anime torrent site that has EVERYTHING. Can't remember the name.

 

[Peekaboo]

(this was about 10 years ago so this anime torrent site may or may not exist any longer)

 

[Peekaboo]

Oh it's still going!

Here it is

 

[Saltwater]

From a quick look on the list I recognize Heidi that I used to watch in my preschool years. Brings back lots of happy memories, begging my mom to buy me the stickers for my panini Heidi album, cutting out Heidi from my duplicate stickers to decorate our wall sockets, and as peeka said the scene where Clara walks again.

 

[Diddy]

Omg House of The Bay was in the thrall of BIG STICKER!

 

[Diddy]

Tbh in the Uk I feel like there wasn’t much famous anime - it’s hard to say for sure because it would all be dubbed but I don’t remember any of those

 

[Diddy]

Well hopefully I'll be permitted to give my opinions on more media one day - for now I'll have to go rogue and talk about Panda Kopanda, if only to myself

I had this on DVD already, and finally sat down to re-watch it. Or them, there are two short movies "Panda Kopanda" and "Panda Kopanda and the rainy-day circus", both about 30 minutes long.

They're both quite fun, not especially deep, but interesting as a sort of pre-Nausicaa collaboration between Miyazaki and Takahata. You can definitely see Totoro in Panda's design, and even the waterworld in the second movie is a very strong vision of Ponyo.

The characters are charming and totally chaotic, particularly Panda who is causing quite severe damage to an old woman's house, but everyone just rolls around laughing about it. I like how this all seems normal only to the 3 main characters - anyone else caught up in it reacts in a quite normal way, stunned terror, before ending up just as bonkers. The stories are very light, even the scenes of peril don't go too far.

I can't say I'd recommend going out of your way to see it, but as a Ghibli time capsule (and one of 70s Japanese animation) it is worth looking at least at the first movie.