![]() ![]() To begin with, the main characters are tanuki - raccoon-like Japanese animals legendarily famous for shapeshifting, trickster mischief, and cheery hedonism, all summed up with their giant transforming testicles. Isao Takahata’s imaginative but heartbreaking 1994 movie Pom Poko has always been one of Studio Ghibli’s hardest sells in the U.S., because it relies on so many pieces of Japanese folklore that other cultures don’t share. Chihiro returns to her parents, Spirited Away ![]() Adult Taeko wonders if she has stayed true to her childhood dreams, but the truth is that dreams are like pineapple sometimes they’re underripe. An unripe pineapple is the disappointing fulfillment of a dream, but it’s also a fleeting bad feeling that we will one day consider fondly. This scene reminds me of that memory, not because of the fruit connection, but because small childhood moments like this reverberate forward and change who we are. ![]() Here I was, a kid taking these beautiful little suns for granted just because they were easy to come by. I have a (now fond) childhood memory of feeling immense shame when I learned that for Victorian people, oranges were a rare, treasured delicacy. But the pineapple isn’t ripe it’s hard and unpleasant, and the excitement drains away into a quiet, disappointed evening, with Taeko trying to convince herself it’s everything she was hoping for. They all gather around for the ceremonial chopping, and tuck in under the winter kotatsu to try this exotic treat together. The story flashes between adult Taeko, taking a break to the countryside to reevaluate her life, and young Taeko during small, important moments in her childhood - like the time her father splurged on a pineapple for the family. Isao Takahata was a master of creating compelling stories from the clouds of everyday life, and Only Yesterday captures the subtle joy of a slice-of-life story. In that moment, she’s like a human standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon, and Yonebayashi manages to make everyday kitchen items look alien and monstrous as she takes them in with intimidated wonder. And then there’s the moment where she emerges into the vast empty space of a human kitchen for the first time, after a movie largely spent at mouse level, or in comfortingly well-appointed, close spaces. Pod silently supports his daughter and smiles at her daring, and Arrietty alternates between boldness and nervousness. But these events play out softly as a sweet coming-of-age ritual. On paper, the sequence might play like a thrilling heist movie, with Arrietty fighting off an immense, aggressive cockroach, ziplining up a narrow vertical space, and rappelling off a cabinet to the ground far below. ![]() At 13, she’s permitted to accompany her taciturn father Pod into that house for the first time, on a quiet raid to get some supplies: a single sugar cube and a single tissue. Arrietty is a Borrower, a doll-sized girl whose equally teeny family lives inside the walls of a human family’s vast country house. It’s a hushed, drawn-out experience where the biggest action is a character stopping to gape. To make a film set in a bathhouse, like "Spirited Away," is something I have been thinking about since childhood when I visited public bathhouses myself." Jiufen may not be what inspired "Spirited Away," but many fans of the movie take joy in visiting the town as it might be the closest they'll get to living the true beauty of a Ghibli film.The most memorable moment in Hiromasa Yonebayashi’s Secret World of Arrietty, based on Mary Norton’s Borrower books, isn’t dynamic or explosive. "I travel with a lot of baggage around me, I have many images of the daily life in the world I want to depict. In an interview with Midnight Eye, Miyazaki detailed just how he came up with the various settings for his animations. Much of "Spirited Away" is set in a bathhouse where Chihiro comes face to face with gods. Over the years, tourism in Jiufen has risen and been the subject of countless travel blogs as Studio Ghibli fans attempt to immerse themselves in the magic they experienced while watching "Spirited Away." In fact, the striking allure of the city has led many to speculate whether it was the inspiration for the famed Studio Ghibli film "Spirited Away." While Hayao Miyazaki himself has rebutted the claims several times (per National Geographic), the resemblance is uncanny. ![]()
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