Authors: Emma Manley
Mentors: Johnathan Chidester
Insitution: Southern Utah University
This presentation will be about the indescribable magical Studio Ghibli movies. Specifically, I will be analyzing how these movies are great at representing life. From the weird, outstanding world of Chihiro’s ghost town from Spirited Away, all the way down to the simple little Iron town of Princess Mononoke. These movies are amazing, not just for their remarkable art work and lovable characters, but for the relatability and symbolism of these stories.
These stories are weird and strange, but so is everyone. We are human. A complex being that is evolving every single day. We have creative minds in all sorts of differing ways, and these movies are great at explaining this; they are complex, imaginative, and life-like. I will not be defining every single Studio Ghibli movie, but I have chosen a few movies I wish to expand on. My first one is The Wind Rises. This movie is based on a true story about Jiro Horikoshi, the designer of the A5M fighter aircraft. This story goes into detail about his life: his failures, his trials, and the hardships he endured. The second one is Spirited Away: this story is Studio Ghibli's most famous work. This is a story of a little girl who gets trapped in a spirit world all alone. Along her journey she makes new friends, discovers new ideas, and is able to discover who she is. The final movie is Princess Mononoke: Princess Mononoke is Studio Ghibli's masterpiece. The young warrior Ashitaka is strucken with a curse and will soon die. This story is about him getting rid of his curse, discovering how to make peace and stop hate.
We should know and understand these movies, not because they are just films and that I like them, but because they are innovative and original. With these movies we jump into a creative world that we can make our own. These movies are relatable in every sense because they are just like us: weird, quirky, and just so compelling. We feel a connection to the trials that each character has because in a sense we all have been through something of the same. These movies represent life in a silly way that I wish to know more about. I will expand on the way these movies are made, the theme and writing, and the characters that we relate to.