8th entry - Studio Ghibli

My love for Japanese anime started way back when I was growing up in the 1980s. In my younger days I enjoyed the quirky adventures of Doraemon and his friends. When I started attending school, I began to watch less cartoons and read more books, so I kinda lost touch with cartoons, watching only occasionally like during festive holidays. However, it wasn't till I was 16 that I re-discovered my interest in animations.
I was on a trip to Hong Kong with a friend, and I put up at his residence. I still remembered that he was so excited to share the animation with me. Not knowing that the movie was titled Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (風の谷のナウシカ - Kaze no tani no Naushika), I was facinated by the vivid colours and lively movement of the characters and their facial expressions, which was so different from the stylised and often comical manga-type expressions in mainstream Jap animations. The storyline has greater depth and meaning than any of the animations that I had watched then. I had little idea that the director of the animation was so famous and that he made so many films, some of which I had watched on TV but I didnt even realise it.
It was only when I started working that I met colleagues who were fans of Jap anime, who explained to me what Studio Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki were about. I began searching for the collection of animations, and to my pleasant surprise I realised that many DVD/CD shops carried relatively complete sets of Studio Ghibli anime. I bought one set (at a bargain price) and thoroughly enjoyed the anime movies.
My favourite movies are:



Perhaps the most famous anime movie by Studio Ghibli, I like this movie because of it has all the best signature elements of Studio Ghibli movies: childhood innocence, love for family, kindly neighbours, beautiful countryside, love for nature and mythical fantasy. A pre-teen girl Satsuki and her younger sister Mei discover Totoro, an imaginary creature (supposedly a mythical chinchilla), who lives in the forest behind their new home in the countryside. Totoro has magical powers that can help trees to grow and only the kind and innocent are able to see it. He used its powers to enable the anxious girl and her sister to visit her sick mother in the hospital. The simple movie delivered a simple message: love nature!
For more information, please access the following links:
English site
Japanese site