BigMrJosh presents: Top 5 Studio Ghibli Movies – Staff Picks

DISCLAIMER: BigMrJosh Enterprises has a workforce of one, so it’s actually just my picks. I thought it sounded more important if I called it staff picks though. I’m allowed to make that sort of executive decision, cos I’m the boss.

DISCLAIMER, The SECOND: Be aware that I am going to indulge my inner fanboy here. If anime is not your thing, then just look at the pictures and then move on, okay, Mum? If a list of anime films is the most unusual thing you’ve ever read about in a blog then you obviously don’t have an RSS feed at savagehermaphrofights.com. Which means you now have something to do after reading this post.

Disclaimer, The Third. This will be the last disclaimer. Sorry if you don’t like disclaimers. I have to protect my staff.

If there’s one thing the Japanese love, it’s cartoons. And I respect that. If there’s another thing the Japanese love, it seems to be young girls getting raped by alien tentacles. That, I’m not so fond of. But the good news is that Studio Ghibli – my favourite Japanese animation studio – don’t really go in for that whole rapey tentacle thing. If that’s what you’re after, this will not help you. But then, if tentacle rape is what you’re after, you are probably beyond my help anyway. What was I saying? Oh yeah, Studio Ghibli rocks. Most of their films are good for the whole family. Not that I care, since I don’t have a family, but I’m always impressed when entertainment can appeal to a wide age range. I think that’s got to be tough. In fact, most Studio Ghibli films feature children as the main characters, so they can be quite inspirational for a young audience.

Without further ado, here are my top 5 favourite Studio Ghibli films. You owe it to yourself to see at least one of these if you haven’t already. They can usually be found in the kids section at the video store, a place that I am always slightly ashamed to peruse, which is not fair!

My Neighbour Totoro – This film has such a sweet story about family and belief. I think everyone should watch this film as part of their training to be a human. That being said, even if this was a 2 hour video of Mei giggling, it would still be the best Studio Ghibli film ever. But you also get the Catbus, the soot sprites and Totoro himself. Great stuff. There’s a reason why Totoro is the official Studio Ghibli mascot, because this is about the coolest movie ever.

Yeah, bitches!

Kiki’s Delivery Service – It’s well documented that witches are the brides of Satan, but Idon’t know how to reconcile that with the story of Kiki, a 13-year-old witch who just wants to achieve some independence. Like just about every Studio Ghibli film, Kiki’s Delivery Service features a cute sidekick. Jiji is Kiki’s cat and he kind of steals the show.

Spirited Away – If you’ve heard of any Ghibli movie, odds are this is the one. The only anime to win an Academy Award. That feat earned it a small cinematic release here in New Zealand, and I’m really glad I got to see it in a theatre. It’s about a girl who is moving house with her parents. They all get lost, the parents turn into pigs and she enters the spirit world. So you can see how I would feel some personal connections to the story.

Princess Mononoke – This is where it all started for me. I suspect the memory increases my love for the film. I first saw Princess Mononoke at a fringe film festival in Dunedin that I originally hadn’t even wanted to go to. I’m glad I did. Isn’t it funny how something unexpected, or even unwanted, can be quite influential? The cut that I saw that night was heavily edited to make it more palatable to western audiences. I didn’t even realise how savage the film was until I bought it on DVD many years later. This one is definitely not for kids, unless your kids are well-versed in things like bloody exploding heads. I like that no holds barred approach to the film’s environmental message; if anything’s going to make me get serious about recycling, it’s a giant pissed-off unkillable boar.

Separate cans and plastics! Bwoarrggggh!!

My Neighbours the Yamadas – I suppose in a country where your neighbours are so close they can steal your rice without leaving their own apartment the idea of neighbours is important. Still, I wouldn’t be caught dead naming two movies “My neighbour...”. This is a very different movie from My Neighbour Totoro though. It has more of a light-hearted take on life, it is set in the real world and deals with real family issues and it has an endearing, almost unfinished look to the animation. I can say that it’s not for everyone, as I loved it and my wife did not. But she likes Kenny G and she’s not on staff, so don’t listen to her! P.S Honey, I love you. Please don’t hurt me.

Honourable Mentions

Pom Poko - Raccoons have magical testes. The movie is called Pom Poko because that’s the sounds raccoons make when they’re using their testicles as drums. The End.

Howl’s Moving Castle – Takes a book that makes no sense and... well, the movie also makes no sense, but at least it looks good!

Grave of the Fireflies – I haven’t seen Grave of the Fireflies for a good ten years. I’ll have to watch it again before I go to Japan. Why? Because it deals with the firebombing of Kobe during World War II. Last time I watched it I could never have imagines I would go there to live one day. Everyone remembers Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but because it was a simple firebombing Kobe doesn’t get that kind of attention. I’m looking forward to seeing the memorials when I get there.

Sucky Mentions

You can’t hit a home run every time. Especially when you're playing golf, but that's another story. The following Studio Ghibli movies... just suck. Avoid.

Porco Rosso – “Pigs will fly before Studio Ghibli make a bad movie.” I present to you Porco Rosso, a stupid movie about a pilot who also happens to be a pig. But he’s not really a pig, it’s actually a curse or something. Rubbish!

The Cat Returns – The cat should have stayed away. You suck, cat!

Laputa Castle in the Sky – I’m going to ruin the ending of this one for you. In the final scenes, the female lead uses love to dodge bullets. Yikes.

If by miraculous happenstance you either a) take my advice and view one of these fine films, or b) terrorists kidnap you and force you to watch Porco Rosso on pain of death, please drop me a comment and let me know what you think.

Placemeant

It has been decided. My beautiful wife and I are going to Kobe. I don’t know how these decisions are made, or by whom. So, like everything that I don’t understand and cannot be bothered adequately researching, I make up the answers!

The Selection Process

In a shadowy room, several ancient withered men sit cross-legged in a circle. They are surrounded by piles and piles of paper. This paper holds the names of those people who have been deemed suitable for JET. (That decision was a whole different thing.)

“We need to decide where we will put these dirty foreigners,” says the oldest amongst them. “Bring forth the ninjas."

In come the ninjas. Each one has a region, um, sticky taped to his back. Yeah, sticky tape.

“Right, let’s get started. Josh... wants Kobe. Ha! Foolish gaijin. Kobe-man, show yourself!”

A ninja steps forward. He is wearing black pants, a loose black shirt and black shoes. His hair is black. His underwear is green, but that cannot be seen under all the black.

“I am the Kobe ninja.”

“Do you want this Josh guy?” The wizened man holds up a photo of a young man, grinning crazily. Some would even say manically, but they can shut the hell up.

The Kobe ninja scrutinises the photo. “Not really,” he mutters. “We were... hoping for some of those gaijin women. With the big boobies.”

“Tough!” screams the old man. “You get this guy! Unless you can fight and defeat all these other ninja for the honour of not having him!”

And then it was on. Some dudes got their arms broken. There was some breaking of furniture: tables, windows and the like, maybe a vase. One ninja caught fire and ran outside to fall into the horse trough. Oh no, hold on. That’s westerns. Forget that last one. Um, a guy got decapitated. There were some smoke bombs and lots of those little knives that ninjas have. I love those things. Mental note: buy ninja knives.

After it is all over, the Kobe ninja cries softly in the corner. “Goddamit...” he whimpers. He cradles the bloodied corpse of the Chiba ninja in his arms, but is nevertheless defeated.

“It is decided. You must have him,” says the old master. But he is merciful too, and he takes pity on Kobe ninja: “This Josh has a wife. You can have her too.”

“Does she have-?” ventures Kobe ninja.

The master only nods.

So that’s how it was decided. Pretty cool, huh? Yeah. Kobe. It was our first choice (you had to specify three. Kobe, Chiba, Osaka, for those who care.) which means we were pretty lucky to get it. Hence my title for this post. I believe this was the placement were meant to have, and I couldn’t be more excited. I also think punning on word is much cooler than intentionally misspelling words or overusing acronyms, but that’s another blog post entirely.

The next step in my plan of world conquest is to learn all I can about Kobe. In such a situation as this, I find it is best to start with a summary of your existing knowledge. Here it comes.

Thing I know about Kobe:

1. Is in Japan.

2. Has a population of heaps.

3. Helped lead the LA Lakers to championship victory three years running (2000-2002)

4. Willing to employ people of dubious moral and intellectual value.

You are thinking that my knowledge of Kobe is so complete I probably don’t even need to go there, right? But I’m sure there are things to still be uncovered about this place.

Things I don’t know about Kobe:

1. Are there robots?

2. Are there ninjas?

3. Are there ninjas who are actually robots?

4. Because Kobe is the home of Kobe beef, will I have ready access to hamburgers?

"Am I a ninja or am I a robot? Only my binary techno-chuks know for sure!”

See? Heaps to discover! I hope that you, like the shoed primate to my Mexican immigrant child, will come along on this learning journey with me! Sayonara!

Now everyone can create their own language!

You probably missed that movie Avatar that was on last year. It was a bit of a sleeper hit. In it, blue giants spoke in a language invented by James Cameron. That’s right, destroying people’s lives through the misery of Titanic wasn’t enough for this visionary director, he had to have his own language too.

What... the hell... does ROFL mean?

But that’s cool. Experts tell us that new words are being added all the time. (For example, my wife creates six new words for pain whenever I forget to put the toilet seat down.) Nowadays everyone is creating their own language, they say. Language is continually evolving, these experts tell us.

Those experts are spastic retards. When something is getting worse, you call it devolving. Crack a thesaurus sometime, experts!

Have you ever wondered what the world used to be like before the word sup was invented? And I don’t mean the verb that describes when you’re having supper; I mean the word that people use when they are too goddamn lazy to say ‘what’s up’? I’ve lived it. It was called the 1980s and it was a great time! But we don’t live in the 1980s anymore. Nintendo games suck now, people lock their car doors when they go to swingers parties, and language is evol- oops, devolving.

The internet is cool, cos it helps me to get my stuff out there more easily for all my readers (thanks, Mum and Dad) and it provides me with all these totally helpful e-mails telling me how to increase my penis size. But it’s bad too, you know. And I don’t mean bad like when Michael Jackson said something was bad and you knew that really it was good. I mean actual bad! Or if you’re 10, I mean wack. I think people are still saying that. The internet is bad because it allows the speedy proliferation of words that aren’t even words. They’re punches in the abdomen to anyone who loves language. They’re like secret war messages that you need to decode before you can understand what someone’s trying to say to you. A perfect example of this is that word LOL. Nobody really knows who invented the acronym ‘LOL’. I personally suspect it was Satan. We all know he owns half the internet and he’s trying to demoralise us enough to make us do his job for him. But another thing I know is this: Knowledge is power. So if you are at all unsure about what some of these internet terms may mean, I will provide some information below for your reference. I suggest you print this off and locate it prominently in either your workplace or home.

LOL – This is an abridged version of the word loll, which means ‘to hang loosely; dangle’. When someone says LOL is means they can’t even muster the energy to reply to your inane nonsense. They basically hate you, regardless of the levity and amusement the rest of their message implies.

ROFL – Have you ever eaten a double fistful of popcorn in one mouthful? Me neither... recently. But if you did, it would drain all the saliva out of your mouth instantaneously, at which stage any word you tried to say would sound like ‘Rofl’. So when someone sends this otherwise cryptic message to you via the miracle of instant messaging, you will know that they are suffering from a grave case of mouthal dehydration. 16 million Americans die from this each year so do not hesitate – send an ambulance to their house. They will gladly pay the call out fee and will probably reward you too for your quick thinking.

LMFAO – Someone once told me this was short for ‘laughing my fucking ass off’. “Well, that’s not true,” I said. “You spend your whole life on message boards. Your ass is huge. It’s gonna take more than a picture of a cat performing a move from Street Fighter 2 to shift that glutinous mass.” And if that person is reading, look, it’s been five years. How long you gonna freeze me out?

Bwahahahaha! I can feel the pounds just melting off.

...Anyway, what LMFAO really means is Loose Mums Frequently Achieve Orgasm. I don’t even pretend to understand what that means, that's the subject line of another e-mail I received. But it’s a million times more plausible than that last ridiculous explanation.

The message here is simple, folks. Yes, we’re all busy working jobs and avoiding our families. But don’t act like your life is too busy to write out what you feel the need to express in full words. Are you performing life-saving surgery for 16 hours every day? No, you’re watching people do it on Grey’s Anatomy.

Would you still find him dreamy if I told you he’d spent most of today up to his elbows in octogenarian colon?