Pixar films may be better than the average children's film, but nothing Pixar has ever created has even approached the magic and wonder of "My Neighbour Totoro".
Pixar films may be better than the average children's film, but nothing Pixar has ever created has even approached the magic and wonder of "My Neighbour Totoro".
My daughter between 7 and 10 was, by turns, bored by and frightened by Spirited Away and couldn't even get through it. She *loved* Princess Mononoke and Nausicaa was her absolute favorite. (Oddly she didn't find either of those scary, but Spirited Away was.) Now an early teen, she's rewatched Spirited Away and loves that too. She also loves the more common kid stuff like Frozen and Encanto.
I think kids have fairly individual tastes just like adults, and it can be hard to predict what they will like or not on an individual basis (though much less difficult in the aggregate).
"I guess it's genetic, because I've always felt I was failing to see what many others see in the Studio Gibli canon." If you also failed, it sounds more like passed on / learned, rather than genetic! Your tastes and curation set them up
My worry is that, with the acelerando and crescendo of Saving the Universe, marvels like Totoro will lose favor with my kid. It has emotion and magic he can digest, but I think the sturm and drang of the usual childrenтАЩs fare will numb his sensitivity. I exercise some control over what we watch, and everything is so lousy that lesser flicks than Totoro must make the cut.
I think kids are also open to more things than we think they are. As much as my kids insist on repeat viewings of Frozen, Cars, and whatever, we've also now watched Marcel the Shell four times. Unknown depths!
I was able to thrill to Willis O'Brien's Kong, rabbit fur rippling with fingerprints, even as fellow filmgoers cackled. But will my teenage children sneer at the matte lines, CRT screens, and glacial pacing of such stodgy old contraptions as Aliens and Terminator 2: Judgment Day? Seems unthinkable, yet likely!
I remember finding Star Trek confusingly dull as a pre-teen, although I warmed up to it later, eventually understanding each episode as a little quandary or thought problem like Asimov's Robot stories. But it's abstract in a way much other media isn't. (Most of TOS I originally saw in black and white; I'm still shocked today by the colorful set design.)
Depends on the age. Need to hook them up while they're still small enough. Getting it to them as teens wont cut it.
Also need to restrict all the modern options, full of frantic editing, explosions, and dopamine tricks, so they can first appreciate something like Star Trek.
My Neighbor Totoro is my son's favorite film, and has been since he was a small child. I think it's a comforting film for small children because there's no villain, and relatively little in the way of danger. Relatively little in the way of plot really. Obviously there are elements of the movie (like Satsuki and Mei's angst regarding their mother's illness) which will go over kids heads, but I do think it more accurately reflects what it's like to experience childhood than a lot of other media aimed at children.
Parents can always help curate what their kid watches though, can't they? For a 5 year old, shouldn't the parent exercize all control over what is watched, rather than just "some"? Hooking them up on good stuff, gives antibodies for when they grow more and their peers are into "saving the universe" stuff
Even if lesser flicks than Totoro can make the cut, doesn't mean the bar needs to be set too low. There's also the option of re-watching (with smaller kids) and of course of not watching movies all the time!
That parents have a responsibility to populate their children's cultural lives with valuable things is, of course true.
Here is what is also true. My beloved father died two weeks ago on the other side of the world after a brutal battle with a rare lung disease. I have been supporting my mother, who is inconsolable, and taking 14-hour transatlantic flights back and forth throughout the summer to the point that I no longer know what time it is. When I am home in the US, I try to function as best I can. My partner is away and I'm solo parenting throughout this entire ordeal. A shitton of things around the house, that were neglected during my father's illness and my travels, need doing, and since while I do them I sob uncontrollably, my kid watches more screens than I would like and certainly more screens than I think are good for him. I just brought my kid with me to my mom's house, and we play with him all day long and occasionally, seeing as we are both exhausted and bereft, we need a break, and if my kid isn't sleeping, that break involves screens. The screens show whatever is on TV for kids at the moment. Not all of it is exquisite fare, I grant you.
This may be more than you wanted to know about my life, Nick, but then again you did opine about my parenting, so now you're better informed.
I don't know anything about Japan, so honest question, is something like My Neighbor Totoro considered a children's movie in Japan? Is that the audience there, where it generally isn't here?
For years there's been a bias in Japan that anime is for kids and nerds. That perception has been slowly shifting just as it has in the US--look at the box office triumph of comic book movies here.
For Ghibli I think you can see that by comparing something like "Mononoke Hime" to the studio's earlier films.
* I should point out however that in Japan manga is just a medium. It's widely understood that just as there are kids books and adult books, kids movies and adult movies, etc. that there are manga for kids and manga for adults.
"For years there's been a bias in Japan that anime is for kids and nerds."
Is this not true in the US? Because that's the impression I've always had of anime. I'm a bit of a "normie" and was once a sorority girl, for reference, and I always associated anime with the most out there group of extreme nerds at my high school. It's definitely grown in popularity since then but I wouldn't say it's really shed the nerdy image...
I think science fiction/fantasy/etc. are increasingly mainstream in American culture. Look at the jaw dropping attendance numbers for events like comic book conventions or the box office dominance of comic book movies. I would guess that anime is more mainstream now than in decades past. Is is as fully integrated into popular culture as Spider Man movies? Not sure.
Out of Studio Ghibli's works, Totoro is probably the most "baby" of them, aside from maybe Ponyo. Very different from something like Spirited Away, or especially Princess Mononoke, which are absolutely more "adult" films.
I watched the original dub as a child in the early 90s on VHS and thus became a Miyazaki fan at a very young age. Adults might be a lot of the enthusiasts, but because some of us saw the films as kids.
Pixar films may be better than the average children's film, but nothing Pixar has ever created has even approached the magic and wonder of "My Neighbour Totoro".
Agree with you that I was very underwhelmed by Spirited Away, though I adored Totoro.
My daughter between 7 and 10 was, by turns, bored by and frightened by Spirited Away and couldn't even get through it. She *loved* Princess Mononoke and Nausicaa was her absolute favorite. (Oddly she didn't find either of those scary, but Spirited Away was.) Now an early teen, she's rewatched Spirited Away and loves that too. She also loves the more common kid stuff like Frozen and Encanto.
I think kids have fairly individual tastes just like adults, and it can be hard to predict what they will like or not on an individual basis (though much less difficult in the aggregate).
"I guess it's genetic, because I've always felt I was failing to see what many others see in the Studio Gibli canon." If you also failed, it sounds more like passed on / learned, rather than genetic! Your tastes and curation set them up
My worry is that, with the acelerando and crescendo of Saving the Universe, marvels like Totoro will lose favor with my kid. It has emotion and magic he can digest, but I think the sturm and drang of the usual childrenтАЩs fare will numb his sensitivity. I exercise some control over what we watch, and everything is so lousy that lesser flicks than Totoro must make the cut.
My kids have watched Totoro and Kikki's Delivery Service so many times and yet remain captivated by them. There is something so genuine about them.
I think kids are also open to more things than we think they are. As much as my kids insist on repeat viewings of Frozen, Cars, and whatever, we've also now watched Marcel the Shell four times. Unknown depths!
My experience with two kids is they're not open to watching new things at all.
You have no idea how many times I've tried to get them interested in watching Star Trek and been shouted down.
I was able to thrill to Willis O'Brien's Kong, rabbit fur rippling with fingerprints, even as fellow filmgoers cackled. But will my teenage children sneer at the matte lines, CRT screens, and glacial pacing of such stodgy old contraptions as Aliens and Terminator 2: Judgment Day? Seems unthinkable, yet likely!
I remember finding Star Trek confusingly dull as a pre-teen, although I warmed up to it later, eventually understanding each episode as a little quandary or thought problem like Asimov's Robot stories. But it's abstract in a way much other media isn't. (Most of TOS I originally saw in black and white; I'm still shocked today by the colorful set design.)
Depends on the age. Need to hook them up while they're still small enough. Getting it to them as teens wont cut it.
Also need to restrict all the modern options, full of frantic editing, explosions, and dopamine tricks, so they can first appreciate something like Star Trek.
My Neighbor Totoro is my son's favorite film, and has been since he was a small child. I think it's a comforting film for small children because there's no villain, and relatively little in the way of danger. Relatively little in the way of plot really. Obviously there are elements of the movie (like Satsuki and Mei's angst regarding their mother's illness) which will go over kids heads, but I do think it more accurately reflects what it's like to experience childhood than a lot of other media aimed at children.
mine too - it's probably the defining movie of their childhood and our family life through their childhood
Parents can always help curate what their kid watches though, can't they? For a 5 year old, shouldn't the parent exercize all control over what is watched, rather than just "some"? Hooking them up on good stuff, gives antibodies for when they grow more and their peers are into "saving the universe" stuff
Even if lesser flicks than Totoro can make the cut, doesn't mean the bar needs to be set too low. There's also the option of re-watching (with smaller kids) and of course of not watching movies all the time!
That parents have a responsibility to populate their children's cultural lives with valuable things is, of course true.
Here is what is also true. My beloved father died two weeks ago on the other side of the world after a brutal battle with a rare lung disease. I have been supporting my mother, who is inconsolable, and taking 14-hour transatlantic flights back and forth throughout the summer to the point that I no longer know what time it is. When I am home in the US, I try to function as best I can. My partner is away and I'm solo parenting throughout this entire ordeal. A shitton of things around the house, that were neglected during my father's illness and my travels, need doing, and since while I do them I sob uncontrollably, my kid watches more screens than I would like and certainly more screens than I think are good for him. I just brought my kid with me to my mom's house, and we play with him all day long and occasionally, seeing as we are both exhausted and bereft, we need a break, and if my kid isn't sleeping, that break involves screens. The screens show whatever is on TV for kids at the moment. Not all of it is exquisite fare, I grant you.
This may be more than you wanted to know about my life, Nick, but then again you did opine about my parenting, so now you're better informed.
Sure, but My Neighbour Totoro is an absolutely wonderful film that is mainly watched by adults. It really doesn't exist in the same category as Cars.
Mainly watched by adults in the US because anime has historically been imported by enthusiasts.
I don't know anything about Japan, so honest question, is something like My Neighbor Totoro considered a children's movie in Japan? Is that the audience there, where it generally isn't here?
For years there's been a bias in Japan that anime is for kids and nerds. That perception has been slowly shifting just as it has in the US--look at the box office triumph of comic book movies here.
For Ghibli I think you can see that by comparing something like "Mononoke Hime" to the studio's earlier films.
* I should point out however that in Japan manga is just a medium. It's widely understood that just as there are kids books and adult books, kids movies and adult movies, etc. that there are manga for kids and manga for adults.
"For years there's been a bias in Japan that anime is for kids and nerds."
Is this not true in the US? Because that's the impression I've always had of anime. I'm a bit of a "normie" and was once a sorority girl, for reference, and I always associated anime with the most out there group of extreme nerds at my high school. It's definitely grown in popularity since then but I wouldn't say it's really shed the nerdy image...
I think science fiction/fantasy/etc. are increasingly mainstream in American culture. Look at the jaw dropping attendance numbers for events like comic book conventions or the box office dominance of comic book movies. I would guess that anime is more mainstream now than in decades past. Is is as fully integrated into popular culture as Spider Man movies? Not sure.
Out of Studio Ghibli's works, Totoro is probably the most "baby" of them, aside from maybe Ponyo. Very different from something like Spirited Away, or especially Princess Mononoke, which are absolutely more "adult" films.
I watched the original dub as a child in the early 90s on VHS and thus became a Miyazaki fan at a very young age. Adults might be a lot of the enthusiasts, but because some of us saw the films as kids.
Well, that, and it's 25 years old.
I mean anime in Japan is widely viewed as a medium for children and nerds.
my kids love those movies so much, and have since they were very little.