Ponyo

And I d- I did not get it at all, so-

I will be starring in the live action remake of Ponyo as Ponyo.

[laughs]

Pretty excited.

2004, Howl's Moving Castle.

Ponyo in 2008.

The Wind Rises in 2013.

Then he retired for a little bit until he came back in tw- 2023 with The Boy and the Heron.

But then, I mean, you've got like sort of Japanese folklore and, and how that's impacted, and especially in Spirited Away, I think.

Um, but yeah, no.

I mean, even I'd say as well that stuff like in, um, in Nausicaä and in Ponyo, you've got, uh, like the climate crisis and kind of imagining sort of what the world is gonna kind of look like in the future kinda thing in, uh, these sort of in very sort of Miyazaki- [laughs] ... kind of Studio Ghibli ways.

And, um, yeah, I think those are sort of some of the, the key themes that, that come to mind.

I did have, we, i- in one of my first screenings in my, uh, uh, Miyazaki and Takahata class, we were showing the delightful, uh, films Panda Go Panda! and Panda Go Panda Rainy Day Circus, which are delightful kind of proto-Totoro pieces by Miyazaki and Takahata from the early '70s.

Actually, proto-Ponyo pieces as well.

The second movie has a, like the end of Ponyo is like taken right from that, if you've never seen it.

Anyway, um, but as we were showing these movies that are about a, a little girl who looks like Pippi Longstocking, 'cause they just took her character design from their unmade Pippi Longstocking show, and, uh, her big panda friends.

Uh, those who have been with us for a while know that on our birthdays we have a rule where we get to break the random rule and pick any non-De Niro film to recap and discuss for the podcast.

Last year, I picked the Wachowski sisters' seminal sci-fi action film The Matrix, and Mike picked the Hayao Miyazaki film Ponyo.

And this year I did weigh a few different options.

I considered Bad Boys II, Star Trek Into Darkness, and of course, The Matrix Reloaded, but ultimately, I landed on 2006's The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift.

I think, I think it's all, like, woven in a way where there isn't the clearest, most concise kind of message here.

I do think a lot of Miyazaki worldview is just sort of seeped into it in the same way that when we got to Ponyo, we were like, "What does the environmental element of this story really mean?"

Sure.

"Why doesn't it feel bigger? Why isn't it louder? Why isn't it the point, in and of itself?"

it does not go the length that nor- that other, you know, Miyazaki films or, or Ghibli films go to really be, you know, meaningful in some real world way.

Mm-hmm.

But then it also doesn't really go full force into the fairy tale thing, which I feel a, a film like Ponyo is a good example, or Totoro, where it, there's just, like, this kind of otherworldly, uh, uh, feeling to it that-

Mm-hmm