Ponyo fish in the sea

Ponyo of the sea

Another review for a Studio Ghibli film. Ponyo has some similarities to other Ghibli films but this storyline is certainly all its own. The story starts out with a crazy looking man in the ocean doing something to the sea. This man (voiced by Liam Neeson). He is a very smart wizard that maintains the balance of the sea above all else everything must remain in balance. He hates humans because they pollute his world and add chaos to the ocean. Liam's character is developing a plot to overtake the humans with an explosion of life "to match the Cambrian"...but we will get to that later.

Liam's character, the wizard, has a peculiar collection of goldfish that look oddly enough like little humans. This is where the story starts. The biggest of the fish escape from the ship and gets caught up in a net with a bunch of garbage. She gets stuck in a glass jar and is washed on shore where a little boy named Sauske finds her. He tried to get her out but in the end he must break the jar and in doing so he cuts himself. The little fish takes a lick of the boys blood from his thumb...and this is where it all begins

Ponyo - a studio ghibli film

Ponyo begins to slowly take on more human traits and eventually she even makes hands and feet for herself. Liam's character eventually catches the little fish, but the fish does not stay in captivity for long. She releases the trigger that will populate the seas with an explosion of life a little too early and she escapes to find her best friend Sauske.

 There are many famous voice overs for Ponyo. Sauske's mom is voiced by Tina Fey and one of the older ladies is voiced by Betty White. Matt Damon is also a voice for one of the characters.

Ponyo is a fanciful tale of the sea...it is full of magic and love as two young people find their way thorugh an adventure of their lives.

The Cat Returns a studio ghibli film

 The Cat Returns





This is an earlier studio ghibli film and if you happen to have seen most of the other films you will notice a common character. This story is light, upbeat and generally humorous...if you like cats. There are many different characters but most are animals...this story doesn't exactly have an underlying value to teach except be careful who you save and know what your getting into before it is too late.
This story starts out with a young girl, pretty common studio ghibli cliche, walking to school with one of her girl friends. As they walk the one girl notices something odd about a stray cat. He was walking on his back legs...and also carrying a package in his mouth. The girl proceeds to absentmindedly have conversation with her friend but keeps an eye on the cat. Eventually the little rascal decides to cross the street without realizing a large truck would smoosh him to a pancake. So the heroine of the story grabs her friends field hockey stick and springs across the street to scoop the cat up, nearly getting hit herself. The cat then speaks with her for a while and proceeds as if nothing major just happened and disappears with the package.
If only the poor girl would have left the cat alone and gone to school on time...because she just saved the prince of the cat kingdom...yes somewhere hidden in the city full of people there was a place ruled by cats and only cats.

Anyhow this poor girl will now be praised by the royal cat family and showered with gifts. An ambassador for the cat finds her in the human world and deliveres an itinerary of gifts to be received. The girl is obviously in denial that a talking cat is going to give her presents so she goes home and goes to bed as normal...but when she wakes up her front lawn is overgrown with cat tails...and for some reason all the stray cats in the neighborhood start to follow her, she freaks out and runs to school to find out her pockets are filled with cat nip. Now she is beginning to get consirned. As she goes through the day doing normal girl stuff, crushing on boys she is to nervous to talk to, the ambassador shows up asking about the presents. The girl yells at him for a while making it clear she is not a feline and does not want a bunch of cat gifts. The ambassador invites her to the cat kingdom, but the request is just a formallity because she has no choice to go or not. Now she is taking these cats seriously as a bizzare threat. She trips and falls over and lands in a pile of trash, a voice in her head tells her to seek out a fat white cat that will protect her from the cat kingdom....and that is where the plot gets going.
On her wild goose chase she finds the fat white cat and eventually he leads her through a maze of alleyways to meet the baron.
She is in an empty plaza as the sun sets and all of a sudden light begins to shine through a window of a tiny building....this is apparently the baron coming to life but we never figure out what exactly is happening. The fat cat tells this new petite cat, the baron, to quit with the theatrics. The baron is an interesting cat dressed in a three piece suit with a cane. Before they all can get down to business however a whole bunch of cats appear and take the girl....the fat cat gives chase while the baron takes his flying mount, a raven, in pursuit of the young lady. The horde of cats begin to make these weird portals to jump through space and eventually they jump into their cat kingdom....the next part of the movie is interesting and silly. Not the best work by studio ghibli but not terrible either...I would probably watch it a few times. 5 out of 10

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Kodama Inspired Work

I had no idea how much people like these little tree spirits...I do have to admit they are very cute.
I am wanting to use these little Kodamas to make some sort of design for furniture or maybe a tshirt....anyhow here is my inspiration...

The first one reminds me a little of a famous artist know for his graffiti. Banksy is well know for his graffiti, but he usually has some sort of message.  

 

 Here is even an example of a tattoo of a Kodama. I would potentially consider some skin art myself only I would use the little kodama from the last picture.

Maybe even a Kodama themed bag set...or a blanket or something....these little tree spirits get so much attention I've got to do something.

Howl's Moving Castle - Absolute Perfection from Studio Ghibli

Howl's Moving Castle(100/100) 

This is my very close second favorite Studio Ghibli movie. It has wizards, witches and wars. Everything you could want in a movie. Beautiful scenery and exciting magic...also some very interesting life lessons to be learned. Howl's Moving Castle has a easy to follow storyline that most children will be able to follow and love. If you are not a child don't worry about getting too bored because the storyline is intense enough to keep everyone of all age groups interested.


This is truly a magical tale about two people who fall in love.



A quick summery:
The story starts out with a young girl who is a hat maker. Unfortunately it seems she happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time...however after you watch the movie a few times you will realize her fate gets tied into that of Howl's and the entire storyline is destined to happen over and over and over again. The young hat maker is closing up her shop when an ugly woman enters the place and curses the young girl so she will eventually meet up with Howl and deliver a letter.
The moving castle itself doesn't look much like a castle at all but a sort of run down collection of buildings on moving legs. As we proceed through the movie we learn the castle is magical and being held together mostly by the power of a fire demon who has made a deal with master Howl.
The wizard in question is fighting both sides of the war trying to make the senseless struggle end. He has at least two aliases and two places of residence in either of the major cities that are at war. He eventually gets called to serve in the war for both sides.

Eventually he keeps pushing his magical skills too far and turns into a massive raven when he fights off the battleships. After too much longer the storyline gets a little tangled and you will have to see it to believe
 it....so I certainly suggest watching this movie.

At the very end of the movie we get a glimpse of his new and improved moving castle....if you are like me then seeing castle in the sky is something only in dreams.

Princess Mononoke - What is a Kodama? What is a mononoke?

Prince Ashitaka

In ancient times, the land lay covered in forests, where, from ages long past, dwelt the spirits of the gods. Back then, man and beast lived in harmony, but as time went by, most of the great forests were destroyed. Those that remained were guarded by gigantic beasts who owed their allegiances to the Great Forest Spirit, for those were the days of gods and of demons.

I have watched this movie time and time again to see if I could understand why it was called Princess Mononoke....but since the phrase was only refereed to once in Iron Town by the lady and the prince. I decided I would do some investigating to try and learn the whole story. First question for me to find was what in the world was a mononoke?

Mononoke - apparently a mononoke is a general term used to describe "a spirit of a thing" any sort of thing...an object or a monster or even a dead person. Usually the prisit of a bad or unfortunate unexplainable thing...so naturally the people of Iron town would consider San a spirit of something bad. The wolf girl is continuously trying to ambush and destroy Lady Eboshi, because the lady is trying to destroy the forest where the great forest spirit lives...so basically anything bad that happens is caused by malicious mononoke.
If you keep up with a Studio Ghibli you will notice that a Totoro is also a sort of a mononoke.

Forest God

 The Forest God may be considered a Mononoke...this god has the ability to give life and take life as he chooses.

Forest God

As he walks plants grow, but when he leaves
the plants wilt and die.

Kodama

Kodama -actually means "echo" but a literal meaning for the word is "tree spirit"...but because of the language it was written in could possibly translate into small ball or small spirit. If a kodama appears in front of you it is a sign of good luck and that the forest is healthy. In the movie Princess Mononoke there are literally thousands of these little spirits hanging around a great big tree. Kodama have the ability to turn transparent at will.
However some believe the kodama will lead the real forest spirit, a huge deer with a human face, right to them...

Princess Mononoke - Kodama

Princess Mononoke - kodama

Kodama

Forest Spirits

Prince Ashitaka and Kodama

Princess Mononoke - Lady Eboshi

The Mistress of Iron Town

Lady Eboshi

This woman is very cold and logical. In feudal china it was amazing to find a woman in charge, and yet all of her employees love her. She is mean, but only when it is necessary....she is deadly only when profitable.



This woman is the reason the story gets started in the first place. If you consider the thought...if she had not manufactured bullets and guns to get rid of the massive beasts the protect the forest then the deamon monster would not have attacked Prince Ashitake and he would not have had to leave his village to never return.

Iron Town

Lady Eboshi employs many different sorts of people that have fallen through the cracks of society and were in serious need of a place to stay. She went to every pleasure house in the valley to buy up all the girls contracts so she could have someone to pump the bellows all day every day.
Then she employed people suffering from leprosy. She took them in bandaged them up and taught them how to make guns.
She is a double edged sword...everything nice she does is for a profit, but still a very strong and deep character.
Here we can see her taking the head of the god of the forest after she shot its head off. Notice the poor little kodama cannot survive anymore without their father.

Lady Eboshi - Gods Head

Transmutation Circle - Master Howl uses them too

I have been compiling information on transmutation circles...they seem to keep popping up everywhere I look close enough and recently I have found another example.

Howl's Moving Castle - Transmutation Circle

In the movie Howl's Moving Castle the wizard master Howl even uses a transmutation circle in order to make a massive change to his moving fortress. He has to use his fire demon familiar to initiate the the spell however this circle defines and contains the magical power needed to preform the spell.
It seems to me if these circles keep appearing across all sorts of different platforms...then possibly these symbols are the key to channeling the earths energy.

Howls Moving Castle - Transmutation Circle

This specific circles are not as detailed as the ones found in Full Metal Alchemist however if we look closely there are plenty of similarities to be found.

Spirited Away a Studio Ghibli Film

My third favorite and most recent film. Directed and written by Hayao Miyazaki released in July 2001 spirited away is a tale about a little girl who wanders into a land full of spirits and gods. No surprise here Miyazaki usually uses a young girl as the heroine to his stories...generally in disarray and surrounded by something chaotic.



 

The story starts out with a small family of three. An over manly father, a little dainty wife and their little girl. The father apparently got a new job in a new town so the family just got uprooted and moved. They apparently get lost trying to find their new home...and imagine that the father decides to take a path through the woods that he thought was a shortcut....He starts to drive faster and faster until he has to slam on the breaks to avoid hitting a statue.
The statue is is front of the entrance to a tunnel...a tunnel that leads to an abandoned amusement park. Its truly a beautiful place. The adults decide to explore while the little girl screams in protest. Eventually they start walking down a street with vending shops on either side. There is no one around, but food is laid out on counters. The adults start to stuff themselves with no regard, but the little girl does not want to anything to do with the food. Her parents wont hear anything of it and they keep eating and eating the father even says "Don't worry Daddy's got cash and credit cards."...how American of him. The little girls goes off to investigate a while more. She discovers a bridge leading to a large building, and there is smoke billowing out a large stack. There she meets another boy, who looks human, who tells her "You shouldn't be here" ...she goes back to find her parents have turned into large pigs and there are odd spirits working all of the little shops. There are lights being light and the sun is setting...the little girl, Chihiro, races back to the tunnel but there is a vast sea of water separating her from the human world.
Chihiro starts to freak out and begins to turn transparent. The boy she met earlier, Haku, appears to help her by giving her a small piece of food form the spirit world.






Chihiro has wandered into the world of the spirits, more specifically a bath house where spirits of all sorts are able to rejuvenate. If she wants to stay in the spirit world she must get a job at the bathhouse, which is owned by a very mean witch named Yubaba. Chihiro has to sign her name away in order to get the job, everyone who works for Yubaba has to sign their name away...that is how they are all controlled.
Chihiro has a few minor adventures after that....she lets in a mysterious spirit called "no face", she frees a great river spirit from pollution and she falls in love with Haku. Eventually she even gets her parents back, they of course have no idea what happened during the time they were pigs.

Ravage Approved: Studio Ghibli

Studio Ghibli is my favorite animated video production company founded in June 1985. It is paired up with Disney so most of these movies are good for kids to watch and also interesting for adults to watch.

However some of these movies have a good amount of adult content. I have seen almost all of them and I will briefly describe my favorite ones.

Princess Mononoke - Kodama 

1. Princess Mononoke  - A cute tale of a young prince that has been cursed by a forest demon. Now that young prince must leave his dying village in an attempt to cure himself and right the world.

Howl's Moving Castle

2. Howls Moving Castle - Another cute love story. A great wizard fighting both sides of the same war finds a wandering old lady out in the "wastes". This old lady happens to be a young girl that has been cursed by a fat witch who is after Howls heart.

Spirited Away

3. Spirited Away - A little girl and her family are moving. They happen to get side tracked and wander through an abandoned theme park. The parents wander to a buffet and start eating...and keep eating and eating. The little girl refuses food and begins to wander. Soon her parents turn into pigs and soon spiritual apparitions begin to fill up the abandoned park.



4. Laputa - castle in the sky - Funny how all these stories are generally centered around a young spirit filled girl. This one starts out with a girl in distress being held captive in a large dirigible. She falls out of the aircraft and a magical gemstone nullifies gravity enough for her to float softly to the ground. The rest of the movie is about two forces trying to obtain the secrets of Laputa. Which is a massive floating island.

5. Tales from earthsea - This story revolves around a young boy who kills his father the king and steals his sword. Soon after a wizard finds the young man and helps him stay out of trouble. This story is a little slow for me but eventually the good wizard fights the bad wizard. The young man and a young girl overcome the black mage and restore balance to the world

Princess Mononoke - My favorite characters called Kodama

Princess Mononoke

"I have come to see with eyes unclouded by hate."

-Prince Ashitaka






.
This is my all time favorite Studio Ghibli films. The main idea here is the greed of humans to kill off whatever is in the way in order to make a profit.

The movie starts with a young man riding a red elk in a hidden rural village. Apparently there is something wrong happening, but we don't know what. The prince goes to investigate and finds a demon about to attack his village. The prince distracts the demon from attacking some young villagers and in return he gets touched by this beast and is cursed. The curse begins to eat away at his skin and will eventually consume his soul. The village elders gather to try and help the prince decide what he must do. He cuts off his top knot and leaves his peaceful village forever in search of some cure. He begins to travel west and eventually he meets up with an odd traveler (Billy bob Thornton) who leads the prince to Iron Town.
 

The leader of the iron town is a malicious woman bent on world domination. She has taken a bunch of brothel women and people stricken by leprosy. The women pump the bellows to smelt iron and the lepers engineered guns that would use the iron retrieved from the nearby mountain.
There once were many large animals that would protect the forest that grew on the mountain, but the lady slowly killed them all.

Watch the movie if you really want to know what happens.
Anyhow my favorite part of the movie is when we get to see these little spirits called Kodama.






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New Reviews for TV series and Anime Series

In the next few weeks I will be adding reviews for my favorite tv series and anime series. I will be starting with Dexter, my all time favorite, and then I will do some anime series like "Cashern" ...which I am sure most of you have not heard of....There is a whole lot of junk out there to watch so I will try and narrow down your search for the good stuff.

I am still getting a lot of hits for Princess Mononoke....mostly about the little tree spirits. I am not sure what that is all about, but I will try to get more information on those little guys for the future.
I also have many more studio ghibli films to review, like "Tales from Earthsea" and "Ponyo"

Working a full time job really cuts down the availability of my blogging....stay tuned my ravage followers.

Any input of interesting user generated content is certainly welcome...so if there is something you would like to see more of please leave a comment.