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Is princess Mononoke the best movie from Studio Ghibli? It's the best anime I've ever whatched .
by neves 4y ago
Is princess Mononoke the best movie from Studio Ghibli? It's the best anime I've ever whatched .
- threatofrain 4y agoI would also recommend The Princess Kaguya and Only Yesterday as contenders for that title.
- code_biologist 4y agoI was going to say Spirited Away with an honorable mention to Howl's Moving Castle as a crowd pleaser — but I haven't see either you mentioned. Thanks for the rec!
- 2muchcoffeeman 4y agoMy Neighbours the Yamadas and Pom Poko are also worth a watch.
- Tostino 4y agoI loved Pom Poko, was such an interesting take on so many things.
- 2muchcoffeeman 4y agoGrave of the Fireflies
- hinkley 4y agoGrave of the Fireflies needs a warning label. It's Schindler's List in a few important ways. 1) it's about WWII, 2) It's a gut punch, and 3) It's one of the greatest movies you only need to see once, and likely will only want to watch once. I've told the kids they can only watch that movie once they're old enough to drink.
- jker 4y agoI've heard this so much about _Grave of the Fireflies_ that I'm afraid to watch it - what if it doesn't affect me the way it does everyone else? Would that mean there's something wrong with me? Is it some kind of cinematic Voight-Kampff?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- lmm 4y ago> what if it doesn't affect me the way it does everyone else? Would that mean there's something wrong with me? If there was, wouldn't you want to know?
- hinkley 4y agoThe sad parts involve kids. If that doesn't phase you the CIA has some wonderful career opportunities they'd love to talk to you about.
- nibbleshifter 4y agoThere's some quality offerings for such people on https://gchq.careers/ https://gchq.careers/ as well, for the non US folks.
- grogenaut 4y agoDid you get an emotional reaction in the first 3-5 minutes of Pixar's UP? Congrats you have emotions.
- 2muchcoffeeman 4y agoWell, if you want Ghibli's best movie ... Grave of the Fireflies to my mind is easily one of the best movies ever made, let alone Ghili's best. I've seen it at least 3 times because I'm a glutton for punishment that way.
- nibbleshifter 4y ago> I've told the kids they can only watch that movie once they're old enough to drink. So, 6 months old? (When I grew up, whiskey was a common cure for toothache, gripe, or any other bother infants had...)
- postalrat 4y agoThe Tale of Princess Kaguya is up there. It and Princess Mononoke are probably my two favorites.
- Andrex 4y agoI've watched a lot of Ghibli and it's still my favorite, but Spirited Away is an extremely close second.
- deepdriver 4y agoHowl's Moving Castle is my personal favorite. Also one of the rare cases where the English dub is on par with the original voice-acting. English cast includes Christian Bale, Jean Simmons and Billy Crystal.
- echelon 4y agoHowl's Moving Castle really falls apart at the end, and it's a shame. Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind and Castle in the Sky are the most similar in feeling to Princess Mononoke. High fantasy, adventure, against all odds. (This is my favorite batch of Ghibli / Miyazaki / Takahata films.) Spirited Away is an otherworldly coming of age treasure that cannot be missed. Totoro and Kiki's Delivery Service feel similar. Whisper of the Heart is this too, just aimed a little older. (And if you like that, check out Your Name by Shinkai or Wolf Children by Hosoda - not Ghibli films, but very deserving of a watch if you like this sort of film.) Grave of the Fireflies is a very poignant anti-war film. FWIW, I bought the old Miramax domain name for Princess Mononoke and kept the website online [1]. It's one of my favorite films. I wish Miyazaki made more films like Mononoke and Nausicaa - they're sublime. [1] http://princess-mononoke.com http://princess-mononoke.com
- archagon 4y agoIn my humble opinion, Spirited Away also kind of falls apart at the end. I never really got a sense of resolution from that movie. Not so for Mononoke.
- Fatnino 4y agoThe castle literally falls apart at the end :) On a more serious note, the book is quite good too. The book doesn't describe the castle as a giant steampunk thing walking around in the hills. It's actually just a plain 4 sided stone building that hovers around a little over the ground, no legs. So in this regard the movie is better IMHO. But in the book there is another location the door opens to and the stuff we see in there changes the whole story. In the movie we spend some time trying to figure out what version of the characters, Howl especially, are the real version. The book turns this up further with the additional location. At the end the take away is quite different between book and movie. Both good in their own ways.
- zmgsabst 4y agoI prefer some of the others: Spirited Away, Ponyo, Howl’s Moving Castle, and Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. I don’t know that I view movies as “best”, since those are all quite different stories.
- King-Aaron 4y agoNausicaa is an amazing movie, certainly one of my favourites.
- woodruffw 4y agoI will be the outlier and submit Porco Rosso for contention.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- dreadlordbone 4y agoThis is also my contrarian take.
- steve_gh 4y agoMe too! Wonderful film
- thiht 4y agoThe ending is so botched though, I’ve never been so underwhelmed in my whole life.
- q-big 4y ago> Is princess Mononoke the best movie from Studio Ghibli? As far as I am aware, most anime nerds say that Grave of the Fireflies is the best movie from Studio Ghibli (for this movie, Hayao Miyazaki was only producer and not director). But be aware that Grave of the Fireflies is a rather sad movie.
- thanatos519 4y agoYou have a gift for understatement. I was weeping for hours afterwards. It was made together with My Neighbour Totoro as a double feature. Only Totoro could rescue me!
- neves 4y agoTotoro is one of best "feel good movies" I've ever watched?
- grogenaut 4y agoI had my spouse, who crys often at movies, watch it with me. I gave them fair waning that it was very sad and apparently very good. She agreed, and was also "I'm never watching that again". She enjoyed it. Can confirm, brutal and great. But like other amazing sad war movies like Schindler's List, I'm not going to watch it for fun. Actually that's a good way to think of it, compress SL into a anime length movie and you have the emotional hit of Grave.
- _carbyau_ 4y agoDevastatingly sad movie. But not for a second regrettable. As sibling comment notes, have My Neighbor Totoro ready to go afterwards to put you back together.
- hajile 4y agoI'm not sure if you are being intentional here, but those two movies were presented as a double feature when they were first released in theater.
- mcphage 4y agoIt’s my favorite, but Studio Ghibli has so many wonderful movies that picking a “best” seems a waste.
- FpUser 4y agoFor me it is impossible to name "the best". To my taste most of the Ghibli content is just outstanding.
- autarch 4y agoI've seen every Ghibli film except the Earthsea film, and I'd say the best are Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, Princess Kaguya, and Totoro. That said, I've liked pretty much every film they've made except Kiki's Delivery Service (I found it a bit dull) and Howl's Moving Castle (it just didn't work for me). They're pretty much all worth watching at least once.
- jonhohle 4y agoThe original Fox English dub of Kiki’s Delivery Service is wonderful - especially Phil Hartman as Gigi. I normally wouldn’t recommend a dub, but I have always enjoyed this one. My understanding is that Disney redid at least some of it when they acquired distribution rights and I’m not sure if that’s still the English version, but there are definitely DVDs available with it. Porco Rosso seems to get ignored frequently. It’s fantastic as well.
- bdowling 4y agoThat English dub has two serious flaws. First, they took out the two fun 70's J-POP songs, which really set the tone of the film, and replaced them with forgettable American songs written for the movie. Second, they inserted background music into parts of the film that aren't supposed to have music (e.g., when the mood is set by the sounds of the town, or suspense is heightened by only having the sound of the wind). Edit: Also, Jiji (Kiki's cat) played by Phil Hartman has a completely different character from Jiji in the Japanese version.
- 2muchcoffeeman 4y agoWatch the original japanese with subs!
- calyth2018 4y agoIt's hard to define best, as someone who watched a lot of it as a kid. For a pre-teen audience, Nausicaä of the valley of the wind, Castle in the Sky, Totoro, basically all the stuff before Princess Mononoke are great films. I see Princess Mononoke to be a film for people coming of age, where it's time to realize the binary view of the world is overly simplistic. Just don't bother with the dubs. Hollywood just couldn't get the right voice actors to act with the right voice to fit the setting and the theme. For example, the main characters dub for Castle in the Sky felt older than the original (or Cantonese dub, which was my first introduction). Pazu was supposed to be an orphan, a child worker in a frigging mine. While the film doesn't directly call attention to that much, it hints at it by having the original voice to be too young to even crack yet.