Hayao Miyazaki and My Neighbor Totoro

A lot of my friends have been telling me to check out Hayao Miyazaki/Studio Ghibli’s films for a while, and this week I finally did. When I was younger I had seen Howl’s Moving Castle and Princess Mononoke, but it was so long ago that I definitely don’t remember either of them. This week I watched My Neighbor Totoro and I absolutely loved it. It had an engaging, heartwarming story that I was very invested in and characters that are easy to sympathize with. Those were probably the biggest reasons that I liked the movie, but one thing that did stand out to me at certain times was the sounds design. Sound is something that can really make or break a movie/video, and especially an animation. In this case, the sound design definitely added to the film. Good sound design is something that is going to be very key in my name project - it could either make the final product cool and believable, or cheesy and lame. I’m really hoping for the former.

"Spirited Away" into the World of Miyazaki

I couldn't possibly go this whole semester without talking about my favorite animated film: Spirited Away by Hayao Miyazaki. I believe someone else wrote a blog on a similar topic, but these films are so good it is worth repeating. When people think about animated films, they usually think they were just created for children. In many cases, this has been true, but not Miyazaki's films. Sometimes, my friends and I will have Miyazaki nights and watch Spirited Away or Howl's Moving Castle or Princess Mononoke. These films are filled with a thrilling storyline, unforgettable characters, and a feeling of adventure that resonates with the viewer for several days to come. This is all accomplished through Hayao Miyazaki's attention to detail, not just of elements in the environment, but behavioral details of characters and a deeper emotional detail in relationships within the story. How he conveys this through images is a truly impressive and beautiful gift. The stories themselves are filled with metaphors and deeper meaning than what is on the surface. It takes a contemplative and imaginative mind to decipher all that is in these films. Every time I watch them, I see something new. I was curious on how Miyazaki makes his films. I focused on Spirited Away:

<------ PART ONE














                                       PART TWO --------->

I was blown away to discover that Miyazaki writes, directs and animates his own films. It is literally his vision that audiences see when they watch the films. To discover that Pixar and Disney use his films for inspiration says a lot about his abilities to tell stories, and to tell them in a very real way that absorbs the viewer in a new, complex, and surreal world. Here is a true animator and storyteller whose stories resonate from the very young to the very old.



By Amber Capogrossi