TheRetroCritic

Watching Spirited Away at the cinema upon its release was something of a personal event for several reasons. For one thing, it was the first anime feature I'd ever seen on the big screen but it was also my first Hayao Miyazaki film and it was, on top of that, really bloody good. Coming at a time when 2D animated films looked like they were on their way out with Disney focusing its attention on CGI animation, the anime was a breath of fresh air and proved once and for all that this kind of animated feature more than deserved to stay. The film follows a young girl called Chihiro who is about to move into a new house with her parents. She's reluctant to leave her old life behind and start a new one. Her father drives towards what he believes to be a shortcut but instead finds an abandoned old fair accessible through a creepy tunnel (as all the best fairs are). They wander aimlessly until Chihiro's parents decide to stuff their faces with random food they find lying arou

Spirited Away sure must have been a tough act to follow so you would have expected Hayao Miyazaki to take it easy and release a lighter, smaller film before bringing us another substantial effort but that didn't happen. Instead, we got Howl's Moving Castle , one of the director's most creative works to date. Based on a novel by Diana Wynne Jones, the film follows 18 year-old Sophie as she is turned into a 90 year-old woman by a witch because the latter was jealous about the young hatter meeting some wizard called Howl, which she herself had her eye on. Sophie then wanders the land in search of the witch, potentially the only one who could reverse the spell at this point, but instead she finds some weird-looking scarecrow who ends up leading her to the titular castle. There, she meets Calcifer, an adorable fire demon, voiced by Billy Crystal in the English version, who agrees to help turn her back into her old... well, young self, rather, if she can help break his own c

One of Hayao Miyazaki's most memorable efforts, My Neighbor Totoro introduced the world to a simpler, more kid-friendly style of anime we'd seen from Studio Ghibli up to this point (the film followed Castle In The Sky ) and yet retained all the artistry and creativity we've come to love from the director. This is one film where the story really comes second to the characters. We follow two young girls who move into an old house in the countryside as they discover a hidden place in the nearby woods where these bizarre but friendly spirits live. There's an underlying subplot involving the girls' sick mother which adds some welcome reality to the whole thing and even suggests that maybe these forest spirits are all just the girls' way of dealing with their mother's illness. But there's no need to look too deeply into things, essentially it's just a fun little Alice In Wonderland / Secret Garden -style tale about little girls meeting all sorts of o

It's about time that plane-flying Italian pilot pigs got their own movie! Set between WWI and II, Porco Rosso follows an ex-fighter pilot-turned-freelance bounty hunter, who was cursed some time ago to physically look exactly like a pig, as he befriends a young mechanic called Fio and faces off against a bunch of moronic air pirates. Directed by Hayao Miyazaki himself, this one's not too dense in terms of story but it does have a lot of subtleties about it which help make the film's straight-forward plot a little fuller and more interesting. This is more of a character piece, the film slowly but surely letting us discover the real man behind the pig (yes, I realise how silly this sounds) and, like Fio, we get to eventually filter out the introverted character's true humanity. It's a sweet, mature movie with some top notch animation which really starts showing off during the exciting and beautiful-looking action sequences. Porco Rosso thankfully

After the world-dominating Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle , Hayao Miyazaki decided to go back down the My Neighbor Totoro route and create a work of ultimate cuteness. A film so adorable it's like a kitten made it FOR kittens. I'm talking, of course, about Ponyo . This one took me a little by surprise, despite me having no expectations going in except for it being good, which it was. I didn't think it would be geared towards a younger audience but, luckily, Miyazaki's smart enough that people of any age can usually enjoy his work and Ponyo's no exception. The plot is like a weirder version of The Little Mermaid as a goldfish princess somehow makes her way to the shore, befriends a small boy and starts wanting to become human, which she slowly does, through a bizarre process of her looking goofier and goofier then less and less goofy. Ponyo's father Fujimoto, voiced by Liam Neeson, meanwhile, tries desperately to keep the ocean in balance si

An early-ish Hayao Miyazaki effort, Nausicaa Of The Valley Of The Wind  followed The Castle Of Cagliostro and was based on one of his own mangas and, although it was produced pre-Studio Ghibli, it opened the door for more classic anime features from the legendary director. The film is a post-apocalyptic sci-fi adventure in which a princess called Nausicaa, who flies around in a weird little portable surf glider... thing and has a special bond with nature, becomes Earth's saviour in the middle of a potentially devastating conflict. Her people are taken over by the Tolmekian kingdom who are planning to use some weapon to destroy all the mutated giant insects in the land. Nausicaa, whose father is killed in the struggle, sets out to stop this disaster since pissing off the insects would only result in yet another global disaster. The last of which was caused, you've guessed it, by Man's greedy bullshit. As you can tell, this plot's all pretty environment-themed, whic

Here's the trailer for Hayao Miyazaki's final (?) film The Wind Rises , which should be out early next year:

A live-action Kiki's Delivery Service movie?! For real? Yup. Apparently it's happening and it should be out next year! It'll be directed by Takashi Shimizu, known for horror film  Ju-On: The Grudge (and its lesser sequels), and will star Fuka Koshiba as the titular witch. The film will be based on the novel and will essentially re-tell the story told in Studio Ghibli's classic animated feature. There's a teaser trailer (see below) but it shows nothing so I shall keep y'all updated should anymore news about the production arise! Any thoughts on why this movie's being made? Are you looking forward to it? Let us know in the comments below or on Twitter @TheRetroCritic ;)