Mononoke is effectively a retelling of Nausicaa in which all the ambivalent stuff is made concrete. It's also a lot gorier and violent, probably to make teen boys attach to the message better. Spirited Away is arguably Miyazaki's most evocative world. Yes, the animation is great but that's not all it has going for it. Fun story: Back when Spirited Away came out there was no Netflix. Fortunately up here in Seattle we had Scarecrow Video, which would do crazy things like rent you that 15-years-out-of-print VHS of Mr. Mom if you put a $1000 deposit on your credit card. And Scarecrow had a Region 3 DVD you could rent. I think it only had a $500 deposit. I had a Region-free DVD player, which was damn handy. However, it was a Chinese region-free while the DVD was Japanese and the video track topology didn't quite line up. So I put in the DVD and found myself watching a bunch of subtitled storyboards. But that was the thing. The storyboards of Spirited Away were engaging enough that I spent half an hour thinking "huh - I guess Miyazaki has gone conceptual" before deciding that if they hadn't switched to the stuff in the trailer by now, something must be wrong. But I was willing to buy it clear through the point where her parents turn into pigs because even the pencil sketches that Ghibli put our are evocative enough to carry the story. Miyazaki himself drew the water for Ponyo. He didn't farm it out. He figured it was important to convey the story. And the water is certainly impressive.
Oh yes, there's clearly more going on. I was just getting some quick thoughts out. There are pretty clear commentaries on capitalism, greed, a longing for simpler times, and of course the story is really a coming-of-age film as Chihiro experiences a lot of growth in the 2 hour runtime. And there's all those images and creatures coming straight out of Japanese folklore. I found a 24 page PDF on the folklore in the film last night that I plan on getting around to eventually. Probably will offer even more insight into the film. I still need to watch a lot of Miyazaki's filmography, most nostably Nausicca, Totoro, and Ponyo.
Oh, wow. Yeah, you need to get to those. Our daughter hasn't seen Frozen. She hasn't seen anything Disney. She's seen Room on the Broom, she's seen the Gruffalo, she's seen Gruffalo's Child, and she's seen: - Ponyo - Spirited Away - Arietty - Howl's Moving Castle - Kiki's Delivery Service - and Totoro. Totoro was her first, and is often her favorite. I think Spirited Away was a little much for her; she was like 2 and whacked out pretty hard on fever drugs. But Ponyo and Totoro she follows with no issue. We actually "discussed" Nausicaa before, but never actually discussed it.
Well your daughter is getting a good head start compared to me! I hadn't even heard of Miyazaki or Studio Ghibli in general until I was maybe 17 or 18. The only one I had seen up until that point was Kiki's Delivery Service, and that's because I swear it was the only one that ever played on Cartoon Network or Disney when I was a kid or at least when that's what I watched. Though I saw many advertisements for Howl's Moving Castle. What I've seen since then has been fantastic though! Glad I've finally gotten around to them.
Here it is! Hope it's interesting. I only looked at it for a bit