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Michael Kerpan wrote:I don't think Takahata has made any official pronouncements -- but I doubt he'll ever make another Ghibli film.

Michael Kerpan wrote:...such as an animated anthology devoted to the poet Basho...

Steven H wrote:

Michael Kerpan wrote:...such as an animated anthology devoted to the poet Basho...

Do you have any more information about this? Maybe point me in the right direction to find out? Very exciting... Haiku probably has a lot to do with my interest in Japanese film (specifically Kobayashi Issa).

DDillaman wrote:by the way, for anyone in New Zealand (at least Auckland, not sure about other cities), YAMADAS, POM POKO, WHISPER OF THE HEART and ONLY YESTERDAY are playing at the World Cinema Showcase at the Academy Cinema over the next couple weeks.

artfilmfan wrote:Saw this film for the first time yesterday. The scene in which Mother and Father flight for the TV is indeed hilarious. When the daughter was left behind in the department store, her claim that the other members of her familty got lost is so cute.

Mr. David Watts wrote:Does anyone here know where I can get a good quality, english subbed NTSC region 0 version of 'Only Yesterday'.
I know I should aquire a region free player, but that advise will not be helpful at this time.
If someone could provide a link to a good version of this title that would be very helpful.

Also, I've searched for Goshu the Cellist but haven't found an English-subtitled version. Anyone know of one?

Titus wrote:

Also, I've searched for Goshu the Cellist but haven't found an English-subtitled version. Anyone know of one?

There's a nice, English-subbed release of it from Japan, but you'll have to be willing to pay an outrageous price for it.

Titus wrote:And I cannot recommend My Neighbors the Yamadas and especially Only Yesterday enough.

jguitar wrote:I just caught up with Grave of the Fireflies--saw it last night and was absolutely reduced to tears, which rarely happens with me. I see that there's a version available on Amazon from ADV films. Optimum has a version currently available on Amazon UK for 7 pounds. Any recommendations about which version to get? The Optimum is cheaper right now. Amazon UK lists other Takahata's for the same price: Only Yesterday, Pom Poko, My Neighbors the Yamadas.

Takahata has subsequently directed four animated features (Miyazaki, seven). As Osmond observed, these are harder to categorize than Miyazaki’s obviously fantastical films, though “all deal with Japan’s present or near-past, leaning towards unorthodox narratives and styles” [2001: 25]. This, Takahata explains, is because “I want to fight my bouts in a different dohyô [sumo ring]. In that way, I think we can better enrich Japanese animation and please Japanese audiences” [Schilling 1997: 40]. And they have succeeded, I suggest, by becoming each other’s complement: Miyazaki remains within the realms of the unreal (fantasy/science-fiction) but varies the setting tremendously, from the medieval forests of Princess Mononoke (Mononoke Hime, 1997) to the unrecognisably mutated, post-apocalyptic Earth of Nausicaä, a millennium hence; Takahata confines himself to 20th-century Japan while displaying a Winterbottom-like versatility with genres. His best-known work, the wartime tragedy Grave of the Fireflies (Hotaru no Haka, 1988), takes the form of a posthumous flashback (certainly an “unorthodox narrative”), recounting the demise of two orphans, brother and sister, in 1945. Flashbacks punctuate the structure of Only Yesterday (Omohide Poroporo, 1991), a pastoral Bildungsroman – or should that be Bildungsromance? Pom Poko (Heisei Tanuki Gassen Ponpoko, 1994) is pure fantasy, albeit one which locates the supernatural (sapient, shape-changing tanuki, Japanese raccoon dogs) amidst the ever-expanding suburbs of Tokyo. After Grave of the Fireflies and Only Yesterday, its unironic celebration of the otherworldly can appear atypical; in fact it is the only one of Takahata’s Ghibli films based on his original script. Unfortunately, the familial comedy My Neighbours the Yamadas (Hôhokekyo Tonari no Yamada-kun, 1999) disappointed both audiences and critics, and given his age (seventy in October 2005) may prove to be his last.

Mr Finch wrote:thanks, btw, for reminding me to put Only Yesterday on my To Buy List.

Michael Kerpan wrote:FWIW, I find Takahata's Yamadas mostly delightful. Episodic (necessarily, since based on a simple comic strip) with a few less successful episodes, but lots of wonderful stuff as well. (And technically quite impressive).