The latest from the maker of Spirited Away, Porco Rosso, Castle in the Sky (Laputa) and others.
My impressions will speak more to the animation than the story, since 95% of the dialog got by me. My friend explained a bit of it to me after the film, but he is completely fluent (half japanese by birth) and said the story was still a little disjointed to him.
As you would expect, it was very beautifully animated. A lot of shots of fast moving clouds in mountain meadows and peaks, I still think Porco Rosso is the best Ghibli effort of those I have seen, but this is very nice in some different ways. The usual little touches of things that make these films so good, small waves lapping the shore of an alpine lake, flower movement in a meadow, little things that really capture nature well.
The CG generated elements in this were a not integrated into the film as well as I would hope, specifically Howl's castle itself. Steamboy was a bit more adept at this I would say. They didn't stand out horribly, but it was enough to attract my notice. Another was in some street scenes with moving backgrounds, they appear to have texture mapped hand done flgastones onto a cgi generated moving background, and it came off a little flat. Given that they are going to have to integrate more CG into efforts like this for them to be financially viable enough to even get made, I don't object to them, but they need to work on this.
Animation of the characters was as good as always, with quite a few elements that harken back to styles used for characters in their other films. And there were many interesting fantastical elements (like the large flying machines of Laputa) to enjoy.
On the story itself, I am comletely unfamiliar with the book, but was able to get a pretty solid idea even without speaking the language appreciably, It was mildly interesting, but not my favorite of the films (which story-wise would also be Porco Rosso).
Miyazaki's films are certainly the standard bearer for traditional animation at this point. And the success they are enjoying (especially in Japan) are a testament to the fact that my employer's senior management is clueless in their opinion it is a dead art and should be abandoned.
BB
My impressions will speak more to the animation than the story, since 95% of the dialog got by me. My friend explained a bit of it to me after the film, but he is completely fluent (half japanese by birth) and said the story was still a little disjointed to him.
As you would expect, it was very beautifully animated. A lot of shots of fast moving clouds in mountain meadows and peaks, I still think Porco Rosso is the best Ghibli effort of those I have seen, but this is very nice in some different ways. The usual little touches of things that make these films so good, small waves lapping the shore of an alpine lake, flower movement in a meadow, little things that really capture nature well.
The CG generated elements in this were a not integrated into the film as well as I would hope, specifically Howl's castle itself. Steamboy was a bit more adept at this I would say. They didn't stand out horribly, but it was enough to attract my notice. Another was in some street scenes with moving backgrounds, they appear to have texture mapped hand done flgastones onto a cgi generated moving background, and it came off a little flat. Given that they are going to have to integrate more CG into efforts like this for them to be financially viable enough to even get made, I don't object to them, but they need to work on this.
Animation of the characters was as good as always, with quite a few elements that harken back to styles used for characters in their other films. And there were many interesting fantastical elements (like the large flying machines of Laputa) to enjoy.
On the story itself, I am comletely unfamiliar with the book, but was able to get a pretty solid idea even without speaking the language appreciably, It was mildly interesting, but not my favorite of the films (which story-wise would also be Porco Rosso).
Miyazaki's films are certainly the standard bearer for traditional animation at this point. And the success they are enjoying (especially in Japan) are a testament to the fact that my employer's senior management is clueless in their opinion it is a dead art and should be abandoned.
BB
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