Hayao Miyazaki’s final Studio Ghibli film breaks record despite no marketing

zencat@lemmy.world to World News@lemmy.world – 504 points –
Hayao Miyazaki’s final Studio Ghibli film breaks record despite no marketing
independent.co.uk
28

You are viewing a single comment

“Final”

What, again?

Yeah exactly. I know the guy won’t live forever, but I feel like he’s fallen into a “boy who cried wolf” situation where people will continue to doubt the truth in this kind of statement from him.

I don't care. If he makes another movie, good. If he doesn't, sad.

Storytelling is worse off without him. And the anime industry will have one more of its old marxists that built the 90s gone.

I'm still going to watch it, though.

Same here! And then a small part of me will be hoping/waiting for the next one.

What was his previous"final" film?

I remember hearing it about The Wind Rises. There may have been others.

Other movies after The Wind Rises were just Ghibli productions, but not Miyazaki directed.

Princess Mononke, Spirited Away, Ponyo, and The Wind Rises were all at one time his final films.

Princess Mononke

Seriously? I remember watching this in primary school around 2000.

Mononoke*

And, watch it again in Japanese with fan subs. A lot was changed for the US audiences, and it's a better film before the censorship. (eg. The little village girl who says goodbye to Ashitaka early in the film is his "sister" in the English version, but was originally an ardent admirer who, in those few shared moments, stoically comes to terms with her future without him and gifts him the crystal pendant as a token of her memory. Which is a far more poignant scene than his little sister sending him off, by orders of magnitude — to say nothing of the quality it imbues the later scene when he gifts it to San. I've no idea why they blunted the concept, and hope they don't fuck up future Ghibli films.) Also, though US voice acting in anime has come a long way from the not-even-half-assed drek of the 80s-90s, the emotive content of the Japanese audio is superb, even without understanding the words themselves.

Yeah, he's been retiring for the last twenty years.

Yeah, as with bands reuniting for another FINAL album, it sort of cheapens the finality of both productions for whatever that's worth.

As a side note; I freaking LOVED The Wind Rises, more than most Ghibli fans it feels like. My father is a retired aircraft loadmaster so I've had a soft spot for aviation since I was a child, but being an absolute commie, liberal, beta-cuck, that appreciation was tempered over time with the reality of the military industrial complex. I felt targeted directly by that movie.