Mamoru Hosoda and Makoto Shinkai- The not quite Ghibli thread

[Robby]

I just watched Garden of Words on Netflix the other week. I came away feeling how I do after EVERY Shiikai film.

"Wow, that was gorgeous! But really boring!" He's just not for me.

Hosoda definitely has weaknesses, and I still haven't seen Mirai, but he'd definitely more my style.

[tatermoog]

"Wow, that was gorgeous! But really boring!"

*gasp* how dare you

I accept many criticisms of Your Name, but boring is a new one. Ah well.

I'd skip Mirai and keep your opinion of Hosoda pure. Personally didn't care for Boy and the Beast either, but it certainly has a motion to it.

[Nobodyman]

Garden of Words was a movie I kinda enjoyed but spent most of it wishing the ages weren't so uncomfortable.

Yeah, that was pretty much my takeaway.

Hosoda definitely has weaknesses, and I still haven't seen Mirai, but he'd definitely more my style.

Mirai is......strange. And unfortunately one of his lesser films.

[Robby]

I said "all" his films, in general. I wasn't singling any particular one. Voices From a Distant Star, Five Centiemters a Second, Garden, all very pretty movies about characters standing around grumping about failed relationships. Still haven't gotten around to Children Who Chase Lost Voices which is apparently the furthest from his normal.

Your Name was fine, but I really don't understand how it became the highest grossing anime ever.

[tatermoog]

Refresh my memory, what was your takeaway on Boy and the Beast, Robby? I thought it was pretty, but seemed massively unfocused.

[Robby]

Liked the visuals and creativity. LOVED the first half, not a super fan of the second half. Wolf Children was kind of the same. Kumatetsu was great, he reminded me of Luffy.

Didn't fall in love with it like I did Wolf Children or Summer Wars, and I only watched it the once... so its just kinda there and I guess that says all there really is to say... I only watched it once. . I wanna revisit it at some point.

[Gizmo]

Saw weathering with you a couple days ago. It’s cute...had a few problems with the main characters and parts of the climax, but ultimately like the choice made at the end. Not as good as Your Name, but one thing I don’t get is people saying this follows the Your Name structure beat for beat. Maybe it’s cause I haven’t watched Your Name in awhile but I didn’t get that at all.

[tatermoog]

Liked the visuals and creativity. LOVED the first half, not a super fan of the second half. Wolf Children was kind of the same. Kumatetsu was great, he reminded me of Luffy.

Yep, almost exact experience (though I'm fine with second half of Wolf Children). Felt like Hosoda changed his mind on what movie he wanted to make halfway through. Mirai is the same, but, like, every twenty minutes.

[Nobodyman]

Just saw Weathering With You and...yeah, that ending may tick some people off.

Spoiler:

I mean, it doesn't help that the last ten minutes just felt like the movie trying to make excuses for why this is okay. "Oh, Tokyo used to be underwater, so this is all just part of the natural order. And, of course, they say nothing about the thousands of people who surely died or were displaced as a result of the flooding. And hey, as long as Hodaka and Hina get their happy ending, right? But...then I guess it's not really right to sacrifice a young girl for the greater good either (what exactly was Hina doing in "heaven" anyway? Just lying on that little island while the little rain fish feed on her?). So, I dunno, maybe what Hodaka did wasn't really good or bad, it just...is.

Well, anyway, aside from that, the movie is still darn good. I really liked all the characters and the relationships they built together. And of course the animation is just as beautiful as any other Shinkai film. That said, it more or less does follow the same beats as Your Name. A story of two young lovers (which seems to be the only story Shinkai is comfortable) who meet under extraordinary circumstances. The boy has to save the girl from a cruel fate, there's a natural disaster involved, and it ends on pretty much the same note with the two being reunited to face an uncertain future. But hey, it's an effective story, and it's kept just different enough to feel fresh and unique.

So yeah, good movie. Don't think I'll buy the Blu-ray, but I'm glad I saw it.

[tatermoog]

Ooh, ooh, it's time for my completely unsolicited and unneeded defense of the ending of Weathering with You as not only fine but legitimately great! Here goes!

Spoiler:

So, it's not much of a shocker to find out the movie has a lot of symbolic connection to climate change just from watching five seconds of the film. The whole Tokyo-sinking-into-the-ocean-with-forever-rain is one thing, but there are a lot of little notes, too, like the fact it's a much grimier and shady Tokyo than you tend to see in other animes.

What I think the movie is thematically about is how young people live with it. Almost all the children in the movie are basically struggling to get by in this world with adults who are, at best, benignly interested in them and apathetic. Aside from Hina, you don't ever see anyone older actually try to do something about the rain; if anything, it's presented as this inevitable process that might magically go away every once in a while through some twist of fate. All the kids trying to figure out how to deal with it in the movie are in no way responsible for the actual problem, but they feel that they're the only ones who can fix it.

So the ending of the movie is basically saying, "y'know what, fuck it, the world may be going to hell, but we're kids and we should still be able to sing karaoke and fall in angsty teenage love and...uh...commit gun crimes like all the kids did before us." I have a lot of respect for the Greta Thunbergs of the world, but there's also a level where this tendency to place all our hopes to fix everything on the youngest generation is pretty grotesque--and I have definitely done that myself. So, y'know what? Hina can do whatever the fuck she wants to do. She didn't create this world, and this world didn't do anything for her. The adult hand-waving at the end is a little eye-rolling, but the fact of the matter is that we're handing off a much shittier world to the next generation and we shouldn't begrudge them carving out what happiness they have. So, no, it's not an optimistic ending, but it's an ending that's about finding some small hope in a world without much. So hey, I'm all for it.

[Robby]

I'm starting to think Hosoda may have a thing for whales.

Can't really tell anything from the trailer for BELLE (maybe a beauty and the beast thing? Or maybe thats just the name triggering that) but it looks hew closer to Summer Wars with the kind of technology fantastical stuff. Coming out... sometime this year!

So maybe we'll see it by 2022.


Also since the last time this thread bumped, I've seen Weathering with You and Mirai. Gorgeous but not impressed with either. See my comments on Shikai from earlier in the page. Mirai was definitely the weakest Hosoda film by far. As much as i love Wolf Children and liked Summer Wars and the first half o Boy and Beast, it's a little harder to get super excited for his stuff when he's so consistently uneven. .

[Robby]

Longer teaser now!



SO... IT TURNS OUT
this film will be a collaborative effort between Studio Chizu and Cartoon Saloon. The Irish studio behind Song of the Sea, Secret of Kells and Wolfwalkers.

So that's got me excite since Cartoon Saloon has done nothing but excellence. I'm curious what the fusion will do.

As much as I love love loved Wolf Children and liked Summer Wars, and his One Piece film was the most *interesting visually* Hosoda's last two films haven't done much for me, so I've been losing a bit of hype on him.

But this... beauty and the Beast looking thing looks like it could be something. That song is striking too.

They are also recruiting Jin Kim, a Disney animator, for the character design for the titular character Belle (the pink-haired lady).
...Hosoda is really gunning for that Oscar huh?

[Nobodyman]

It could be a case of all the right talents coming together to make a great movie, or it could be a case of too many cooks spoiling the broth.

In any case, Hosoda still has enough good will with me from Summer Wars and Wolf Children, and the trailer looks good, so I'll definitely check this out.

[tatermoog]

LOL, I 100% forgot Mirai existed. Had to think hard to remember if I'd even seen it.

But yeah, I'm still in the Summer Wars/Wolf Children goodwill camp, I'll give it a run.