CAA: Christian Anime Alliance

Hey guys, I just found out about this pretty decent studio. They don't really do TV anime, but they've churned out a fair number of movies. Have you seen any of their stuff before?



So you might have heard of them. They started in the 80s after some movie called Nausicaa. Since then, they've been making a bunch of movies.

Rather than highlight their works (since there are a lot of them), I think I'll go through the various directors.



Hayao Miyazaki is the guy that everyone and their parents and their friends and everyone else has heard about and is the guy that everyone brings up when they want to talk about the power of animation. He is the director of the only animu to have won an Oscar. He's responsible for most of Ghibli's films, especially the well-known ones, so much so that Miyazaki and Ghibli are almost synonymous.

Nausicaa, Laputa, Totoro, Kiki's Delivery Service, Porco Rosso, Princess Mononoke, Spirted Away, Howl's, and Ponyo are all his doing.



But those are not the only directors they have!

Isao Takahata is the guy with the next largest amount of films directed. He's responsible for the most well-known serious Ghibli work, Grave of the Fireflies. The other big one he did was Only Yesterday.

And then there are a bunch of one-offs. Miyazaki's son, Goro Miyazaki, had his go at directing with Earthsea. Yoshifumi Kondo, who was to be Miyazaki's successor only directed one film, Whisper of the Heart (BEST GHIBLI MOVIE EVER), before his untimely passing. Tomomi Mochizuki did Ocean Waves, a great movie revolving around a love triangle. Hiroyuki Morita directed The Cat Returns, a sidestory of Whisper of the Heart. And newbie Hiromasa Yonebayashi directed the most recent Ghibli production, The Borrowers Arrietty.



So yeah, these movies turned out to be pretty neat. Depending on your tastes, you'll like some more than others, but I think almost all of them are worth watching.

Thanks as always for your recommendations! :)

More seriously, Studio Ghibli's movies are esteemed enough that we actually hardly mention them at all around the site, because they're part of the cultural background. It's good to highlight them occasionally for those who are new to anime.

And yeah, Whispers of the Heart was definitely one of the best. Even though I don't remember its plot at all...

I have yet to see the Cat Returns though, or any of Takahata's works.

Ghibli has got to be one of the best....no THE best anime studio ever! I love all of Miyazaki's work, yet I haven't seen Princess Mononoke yet. ! But, I think I may just give it a try.

Really looking forward to Arriety.

Falx (post: 1430332) wrote:[IMG]
Really looking forward to Arriety.

Why are Monster Hunters 3 inches tall in this movie wat.

That's totally the Ravager blade.

I wanna know what that guy is yelling about.

Maybe he stepped on a yellow jacket nest.

It looks like they're going to attack/kill him.

Maybe they just cut off his toes or something.

In any case, it'll be interesting to see The Borrowers as done by Ghibli. While I wish it were something original that they were doing, if it's Ghibli, I think I'll be okay with it.

Yeah that's not an official image, but I am looking forward to the movie.

Oo, I can't wait for that one!

So Miyazaki does some good and some bad. I really didn't like Nausicaa, and Howl's was better but not the best, but Kiki's and Princess Mononoke were pretty good, and Spirited Away is great.

I agree with blkmage though, Whispers of the Heart is probably their best movie.

My Neighbor Totoro is my favorite Miyazaki film. I have some problems with most of his other films, especially Howl's Moving Castle (put your pitchforks down).

Whisper of the Heart is wonderful and I need to see it again.

Wow, I really thought that Whisper of the Heart was really underated! I didn't know it had so much love! (BECAUSE IT IS THE BEST!) i have probably seen that movie...10 times or more. It's such a great movie.

Everyone really only knows about the majority of Miyazaki's works, but the rest seem to be forgotten...

I hope we get Earthsea over here sometime... I'd really like to see it, even if it wasn't that great.

So far I haven't seen much Ghibli, and I am one of the very, very few I'm sure that so far is NOT a huge fan of Miyazaki...but I do like Kiki's Devliery Service and Howl's Moving Castle, I do not like Nausicaa (I really, REALLY don't like Nausicaa) or Ponyo...a bunch more are on the to-watch list though.

LOL I liked Ponyo, but I gave my copy of it away to a friend... >_> I had only watched the dvd once, and I didn't really intend to watch it much more.

I still haven't seen Ponyo yet, and honestly I don't really care if I do. XD

I'm fairly optimistic about Porco Rosso 2 as the original was very dear to Miyazaki, but unfortunately his newer films haven't been as good as his previous ones so it could go either way.

I need to buy Whisper of the Heart someday. I taped it when it was on TV five or so years ago, but VHS tapes only last so long...

Well I guess now I'll go back to being disappointed with Miyazaki...

I watched a few of the Ghibli movies way back when I first got into anime. I remember thinking that Princess Mononoke was pretty good (need to see again), and then being completely disappointed by Nausicaa and Howl's. After that, I didn't really see any others. Grave of the Fireflies is certainly on my hit list, though.

Howl's was the first Ghibli that I ever saw. I thought it was good, but nothing too special. And then.... I saw Spirited Away. I was hooked. Kiki's Delivery Service was the next one I saw and also one of my faves. Nausicaa also ranke higher on my list than Princess Mononoke and Howl's.

I think Ghibli is one of the best studios out there. They have such attention detail and are the only studio I'd feel safe showing to a child. There isn't a single Miyazaki film I don't like, in fact I have almost every one of them in my collection. (the only ones I don't have are The Cat Returns--which was ok--and Ponyo. Ponyo I don't have because I don't have enough money to purchase it.

I've saw Spirited Away and Howl's first, then Princess Mononoke a while later. The violence in the latter caught me off guard, it was pretty far removed from the other two, but I still like it as much as the others. A lot of people seem to not, but I actually like Howl's (except for that one part at the end with the Witch of the Waste and Turnip Head -that was weird). Although the book is better.

An interesting thing about two Ghibli directors is that they both worked on a specific anime before Ghibli, Heidi Girl of the Alps, Takahata as director and Miyazaki on scene design and layout, which was translated into Afrikaans in South Africa in the 1980's and was very popular. Most people have no idea that it’s anime and it is my trump card against people who have told me “all anime is evil”. I have to say though, if I was to try to watch it in English or Japanese I think my ears would burn off.

HUGE Miyazaki fan here. I want to see a lot more of his work, as I've only seen Mononoke Hime, Spirited Away, Howl's, Nausicaa, Kiki's, Laputa and Totoro (though it was so long ago, I may as well not have even watched the last three).

I also really want to check out Takahada's stuff. I have heard that his work, while less "magical," is more culturally relevant and significant.

I try to be fair as I dislike Miyazaki as a person for many reasons and try to enjoy the movies that he has made.

But there is only three of his movies that I care for and that is, Porco Rosso, Kiki's Delivery Service and My Neighbor Totoro,

But like blkmage said, Whispers of the Heart is the Best Ghibli movie of all time.


[font="Book Antiqua"][color="Red"]Col. Roy Mustang[/color][/font]

The first time I actually sat down and watched a Ghibli movie was
[SPOILER]June 6, 2010; I've been watching one approximately every two weeks since then[/SPOILER]
Given what I'd heard about Miyazaki and my preconceptions of what his movies are like, I expected to not like a lot of them. It's kind of surprising to me that his hit rate has not been bad. Even those movies that I was kinda meh on, I still found enjoyable from a production standpoint (Howl's, I'm looking at you).

But yeah, it's definitely the movies that are closer in style to Whisper of the Heart and Ocean Waves that are my favourites.