Favorite And Least Favorite Studio Ghibli Movie?

[Ben]

This still looks awesome. I’m in for the Blu too!

[droosan]

I'd always kinda felt kinda bad about 'hijacking' this Studio Ghibli thread with Lupin the Third talk .. so, if you wanna repatriate the relevant stuff above to gaastra's new Lupin the Third: The First thread in the 'At The Movies' section, that's OK by me.

[Evergreen]

Kiki's Delivery Service has always been my favorite. There's a charming domesticity about that film that makes it a soothing watch. The only competition for it really is Princess Mononoke. I'd put Spirited Away and My Neighbors the Yamadas more firmly after those two. My least favorite is either The Cat Returns or Arrietty. I remember TCR as being colorful, but very dull; Arrietty is also dull, although the human antagonist was somewhat entertaining.

To be fair, I haven't seen Ocean Waves, Earwig and the Witch, or Pom Poko. If it's any consolation, I have seen The Red Turtle as well as Mary and the Witch's Flower which definitely has a similar feeling to Ghibli because of creative talent from Ghibli having been a part of it despite being released by Ponoc.

[droosan]

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Hayao Miyazaki's latest film -- How Do You Live? -- will be released in Japan with a single poster, and no other marketing; no trailers, no TV spots, and no other print ads.

[Ben]

Interesting…was just about to post that here.

In Japan, where the awareness and intense anticipation is there already, I can see this working due to the culture and word of mouth, but internationally they’re going to need to release at least a trailer, maybe even just some promo clips, just to let audiences know it’s coming. Unless it’s just really bad and they’re happy to write it off, or it goes direct to streaming, where all they need is the poster image and a couple of framegrabs.

Hopefully not, though. Hopefully it is a truly great final sign-off film that’s betterer than the last two or three "final" films…!

[GeffreyDrogon]

Talk about invisible advertising!

[EricJ]

Longtime anime fans are used to Hayao being a pretentious "rebel" party-pooper where the industry is concerned, and I took this as yet another Woody Allen-eque diva display that promotion, posters and plot-specific trailers "insult" his movie.

And frankly...like Japanese Ghibli trailers ever told us much in the first place, besides just giving us Hayao's music video for the out of place folksongy end-credit theme: