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Excellent. I look forward to a US release. The DVDs were never good.

I'd say the Nausicaa DVD looks better colorwise/tonally than the screenshots from the new Blu.

The new Nausicaa BD looks a tad softer too. Seems to be less grain as well. I remember the first Nausicaa BD was left quite grainy, which I liked. Ghibli began to turn the noise down in their later BD releases.

Either way, the pricing of their Japanese blu-rays are ridiculous, with very few new extras, and eliminating the best of the previous extras (the lengthy Princess Mononoke making-of, for example), and now the Miyazaki boxset includes NONE of the previous blu-ray extras: no storyboards, no trailers, nothing. Only the bonus discs have the new extras.

So for Ghibli fans to get all the existing content, you need to keep the individual discs, as well as the boxset.
I'm sticking with the imports...

Anyone been to a Target to see if they have Kiki?

JMULL222 wrote:Anyone been to a Target to see if they have Kiki?

You mean on DVD, I'm assuming? The one near me, which is in a somewhat rural area, does. You can check their stock online, too.

Kiki on BD has not been officially solicited for a US date yet. The only info I've read on it is Target's claim that it will be released this month. I'm pretty skeptical. Amazon.com doesn't even have an entry for it yet.

I'd expect it to be released alongside The Wind Rises whenever that BD is released in the US.

There are some internet rumors going around that Studio Ghibli is shutting down, but it just seems to be a mistranslation. There has been no formal announcement of sorts in Japan, plus this would be massive news on all TV channels and Japanese blogs, but there is nothing.

Yes, it's true their new film "When Marnie Was There" did not debut at #1 like all other Ghibli movies, and not doing huge business (but it's so far in it's third week, so it may still play for a bit). I will say that the movie was excellent though, it was great to see a movie that was not only for children, but that may have affected the turnout.

Studio Ghibli's first television series will be broadcast in the fall, so there is still product being produced. But producer Suzuki said there will be some changes, including the mentioned foray into television.

"Ronia, The Robber's Daughter" TV series commercial, being produced by Polygon Pictures with help from Studio Ghibli, directed by Goro Miyazaki.

manicsounds wrote:"Ronia, The Robber's Daughter" TV series commercial, being produced by Polygon Pictures with help from Studio Ghibli, directed by Goro Miyazaki.

Yikes, that looks gross. The studio is not as proficient in CGI as it is cell animation, it would seem. Only seen one of Goro's films but it was a mess. Have serious doubts about him ever being able to carry the torch for his father. Would anyone particularly recommend any of the other younger generation?

It's a terrible pity that this is all happening immediately after Hayao raised the bar yet again with The Wind Rises, a career high in my opinion and a devastating, wondrous film. Totoro is perfect, but Miyazaki chose his masterpiece as swan song.

FerdinandGriffon wrote:Would anyone particularly recommend any of the other younger generation?

I've only seen it once, but I thought The Secret World of Arrietty was wonderful - right up there with Ghibli's best.

Goro's "Tales From Earthsea" was a mess, the worst Ghibli movie by far, but his followup, "From Up On Poppy Hill" was much better. Not a masterpiece in any way, but better. I second director Yonebayashi's "Arrietty" as well as his latest "When Marnie Was There". One that's always placed lower on the scale, but I always find immensely funny and carefree is "The Cat Returns".

Stifling Yonebayashi, even for a little while, would be a big disappointment. He deserves a long career with Ghibli's level of resources. I'd guess that right now, Ghibli's trying to decide what exactly the studio is going forward, considering that their two leads are so old. Their business model was also pretty based upon a constant string of blockbusters, which is impossible to maintain for obvious reasons.

FerdinandGriffon wrote:

manicsounds wrote:"Ronia, The Robber's Daughter" TV series commercial, being produced by Polygon Pictures with help from Studio Ghibli, directed by Goro Miyazaki.

Yikes, that looks gross. The studio is not as proficient in CGI as it is cell animation, it would seem. Only seen one of Goro's films but it was a mess. Have serious doubts about him ever being able to carry the torch for his father. Would anyone particularly recommend any of the other younger generation?

It's a terrible pity that this is all happening immediately after Hayao raised the bar yet again with The Wind Rises, a career high in my opinion and a devastating, wondrous film. Totoro is perfect, but Miyazaki chose his masterpiece as swan song.

It's unfair to judge these younger directors in comparison to Hayao Miyazaki. What you need to look for right now is someone with a distinct voice going forward--someone who may not yet be great, but has something to say. Yonebayashi is their most talented young *animator*, but he doesn't seem to have a distinct voice yet. Arrietty is pretty generic--if skillfully made--stuff. Goro is the opposite of Yonebayashi: it seems like he has something different to say if you're judging him by how he handled From Up On Poppy Hill, but he doesn't yet have the skill to articulate his vision and voice effectively.

Ghibli really has no one to blame but themselves though. A lot of it is Hayao Miyazaki's fault too. He became bigger than the studio. They aren't known for helping individual voices blossom other than Miyazaki's. Nearly 90% of their stuff has to be done "his way". They've let a lot of good talent go over the years because of how stifling it is to work there. Mamoru Oshii once likened Ghibli to The Kremlin.

More on the SG story:


http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/0 ... -AkbVgzEpQ" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Apparently Princess Mononoke will finally get a Blu-Ray release. It's up for Pre-Order here.

http://www.rakuten.com/prod/princess-mo ... 61447.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Release date January 1st, 2050. Gotta mark the calendar...

Must have be a placeholder date but even then, I tried to find the source. People have been picking up on it. All I could find was this.

http://www.fandompost.com/2014/08/07/pr ... se-coming/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

FerdinandGriffon wrote:

manicsounds wrote:"Ronia, The Robber's Daughter" TV series commercial, being produced by Polygon Pictures with help from Studio Ghibli, directed by Goro Miyazaki.

Yikes, that looks gross. The studio is not as proficient in CGI as it is cell animation, it would seem. Only seen one of Goro's films but it was a mess. Have serious doubts about him ever being able to carry the torch for his father. Would anyone particularly recommend any of the other younger generation?

In the recent Ghibli doc The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness, Goro only appears briefly, but he seems extremely prickly, at one point almost saying, "unlike the rest of you, I don't even really want to be here." The film largely focusses on his father (and The Wind Rises), but there are strong indications that there's a lot of bad blood among the company's creatives, though Goro is the only of the younger generation who gets any screen time. Takahata barely appears in the film, but the struggle to make Princess Kaguya provokes eyerolls-a-go-go from all concerned (and it seems like that is the documentary we really want to see). However, the constant slagging is tempered by everybody's acknowledgement that he is, at the end of the day, a genius. Hilariously, Miyazaki still seems angry that Takahata didn't bother to clean up the studio after he finished work on My Neighbours the Yamadas. He also kind of passive aggressively asserts that Heidi was the best thing Takahata ever did.

Back to the original question, Arrietty and Up on Poppy Hill are great films, easily recommendable. Arrietty is very much in a (Hayao) Miyazaki vein, but Poppy Hill is a lot more individual, and suggests that Goro could end up being an interesting and important director.

zedz wrote:Back to the original question, Arrietty and Up on Poppy Hill are great films, easily recommendable. Arrietty is very much in a (Hayao) Miyazaki vein, but Poppy Hill is a lot more individual, and suggests that Goro could end up being an interesting and important director.

Sorry to say it, but Up on Poppy Hill was the aforementioned "mess". An interesting setting and vibrant color work, but found the plot and characters contrived and sentimental, while at the same time remaining largely shapeless and undefined, and the animation almost entirely lacking the usual Ghibli gracenotes and moments of invention, the central house-cleaning scene perhaps aside. Not offensively bad, but without anything that revealed the presence of a personal vision. But clearly you did see that missing special-something. I'd be curious to hear where.

I'm definitely going to see Arrietty. Had always meant to, but had to travel during the theatrical run.

On another note, finally filled out my Kon Satoshi viewing with Perfect Blue yesterday. Though he didn't have much in common with Ghibli, it's such a terrible shame that the one younger anime director who I can imagine scaling comparable heights to Miyazaki and Takahata had to be taken from the world before they'd even retired. Then again, I haven't seen enough Oshii to know what he's capable of. Should rectify that.

Although at times Miyazaki and Takahata seem to hate each other, they both have said their relationship is like 2 brothers: constantly bickering, criticizing each other, yet love and respect each other very much. Miyazaki has said only Takahata has the guts to be critical against Miyazaki's works when others just say "genius, genius!", and vice versa.

By the way, if you think "Poppy Hill" was a mess, "Earthsea" is an even bigger mess. (I still bought the blu-ray of Earthsea, to give it a second chance sometime, but sits on the shelf unwatched...)

Both "Arrietty" and "Marnie" really lingered in my mind long after the credits finished. I watched "Marnie" 2 weeks ago, and I'm still thinking about it.

By the way, the UK gets "Spirited Away" in November

I've always thought of Goro's status at Ghibli nothing but nepotism; his two films are easily the worst in Ghibli's catalog. Only The Cat Returns comes close in disappointment factor to Goro's works. And I do agree that From Up On Poppy Hill is a superior film to Tales of Earthsea, but that isn't saying much.

I haven't seen either of the Goro films yet but I thought The Cat Returns was excellent. It perhaps helps if you see it as a very long short film, which is how it was originally planned (initially a 20 minute short, then a 45 minute one, and then eventually the 75 minute feature we have today).

To tell the truth, I loved Poppy Hill -- not as much as my very favorite Ghibli films, but more than Howl or Ponyo.