Hayao Miyazaki is one of the most famous Japanese animation movie director. Some of his famous films are “My Neighbor Totoro”, “Howl’s Moving Castle”, and “The Spiriting Away of Sen and Chihiro”. I have watched all of these movies and I’m sure that almost all teens have watched or heard about these movies. They are great and pleasant. So one day I thought about his movies, ‘What aspects make those that interesting?’. And soon I came up with three similarities: characters, songs, and the plot.
Interestingly, all of the movies’ main character is a young lady or a girl with another character, who helps and supports her.
“My Neighbor Totoro” is a movie about two young girls, Satsuki and Mei, and their experience with Totoro(It originated from Mei’s mispronunciation of “troll”, tororu), a creature that protects a forest behind their house. One day, the main character, Mei, finds Totoro in the old forest. Even though she tells about it to his father, he doesn’t believe her. However, her older sister, Satsuki, believes her and soon they all becomes the friend of Totoro. So to simplify it…
Main character of “My Neighbor Totoro” : Mei – 5 years old girl
Main character’s supporter : Satsuki, her sister
“Howl’s Moving Castle” is a movie about a young lady, Sophie, and a magician, Howl, taken place during the middle age in Europe. The movie begins with the encounter of an ordinary young lady, Sophie, and Howl, chasing by the Witch of the Waste. When the witch knows about this, she curses Sophie, which turns her into an old grandmother. So Sophie decides to look for Howl and gets into his moving castle. And their weird and strange story begins. So to simplify it…
Main character of “Howl’s Moving Castle” : Sophie – 18 years old lady
Main character’s supporter : Howl, a powerful young magician
Lastly, “The Spiriting Away of Sen and Chihiro” is about a norm girl, Chihiro’s, later called as Sen, adventure in a mysterious village, where strange creatures and ghosts exist. By the help of Haku, a strange yet powerful boy, she gets a job, a worker of a bathhouse, and able to stay in the village. As she is the only human in the village, at the beginning she is discriminated by others. But soon with the help of her friends, including Haku, she gets used to the place and finds out a secret about Haku with the owner of the bathhouse.
Main character of “The Spiriting Away of Sen and Chihiro” : Chihiro(or Sen) – 10 years old girl
Main character’s supporter : Haku, a boy with strange power
It is easily noticed that the main characters of these movies are all young lady and girls with older and stronger supporters(by this, we can tell the taste of Miyazaki, a young girls… never mind). Under my elaborate scientific professional speculation, this happens due to three reasons.
As the main characters of movies(especially the two later one) goes under a hardship, a weak young female character will attract more attentions. If the movie is a mid-age big and strong muscular man, the movie would be creepy and no longer children’s movie but more like a action movie, like Rambo.
Secondly, most of Miyazaki’s movie emphasizes the purity of the main character, which attracts other characters around her. In “My Neighbor Totoro”, a little girl, Mei, becomes friend to Totoro, which cannot be seen by a mature adult but only by a pure young child, like Mei. In “Howl’s Moving Castle”, even though the main character’s appearance was an old grandmother, her pure heart and unique characteristic allows Howl to fall in love with her. Lastly, in “The Spriting Away of Sen and Chihiro”, Chihiro could make many friends due to her attractive child-like kindness yet harsh scolding(if Chihiro was a man, she would be punched by other characters long time ago).
Lastly, the main characters are isolated from the rest of the world and supporters are the one who connects them from the rest of the world. Mei, in “Totoro”, sees and knows the existence of Totoro but her father doesn’t believe a young girls’ non-sense story. However, her sister decides to trust her and soon meets Totoro. When Mei is a little girl, who is not old enough to even enter a school, Satsuki attends middle school. So she proves that Mei is not just daydreaming or lying about Totoro. In “Howl’s Moving Castle”, as Sophie is cursed and turned into a grandmother, she keeps it secret to everyone around her and leaves the town. However, as Howl is a magician and the cause of the curse, she can opens her to him. So through Howl she is able to kee
p contacts with the rest of the world. In “The Spriting Away of Sen and Chihiro”, as Chiriro is human, everyone ignore and look down at her. However, Haku, the second highest person in the bathhouse, cheers her up and helps her to have friends. So without his help, Chihiro wouldn’t be able to escape from the house(in fact, without Haku, she would have died at the beginning of the movie).
Picture 1- http://www.andysartwork.com/gallery/HayaoMiyazaki.jpg
Picture 2 – http://stopswithme.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/anime-my-neighbor-totoro.jpg
Picture 3 – http://www.utoronto.ca/stmikes/kelly/images/howlsmovingcastle.jpg
Picture 4 – http://www.tersninja.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/sprited-away3.jpg
Picture 5 -http://th01.deviantart.com/fs21/300W/f/2007/256/5/2/TonariNoTotoro_Bus_Stop_by_sachsen.jpg
Picture 6 – http://www.danielthomas.org/Assets/film%20reviews%20pix/howl.gif
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