Walt Disney has released 3 special edition Studio Ghibli films. I was hoping for Princess Mononoke, but alas no. The three new DVDs are: My Neighbor Totoro, Castle in the Sky and Kiki’s Delivery Service. Each has a special Ghibli world special feature where you can explore the different studio Ghibli films with character bios and plot points. Really cool stuff! Here is a breakdown of the 3 movies.
My Neighbor Totoro is about two young sisters, Satsuki and Mei. They move out to the country with their father and sick mother. There they share adventures while meeting the neighbors and discovering their area. They also discover a huge forest spirit named Totoro. When Satsuki and Mei’s mother has a complication from her illness, little Mei sets of on her own to visit her at the area hospital. She gets lost and the entire community goes looking for her. Unable to find her, Satsuki summons Totoro for help. Along with the Cat Bus they find Mei and all is well with the family. Wonderful animation and storytelling will be especially appealing to younger audiences.
Castle in the Sky is catered to a more older audience. It is about a boy named Patsu who meets a girl named Sheeta falling out of the sky. She is pursued by air pirates and the local military. Come to find out she is a descendant of Laputa an ancient floating city with great technological power. The military thinks she is the key to unlocking Laputa’s power and will stop at nothing to retrieve her and her magical amulet. Great storytelling , but enough action for me and it kind of drags on in the middle but still very well done.
Then there’s Kiki’s Delivery Service. This movie is more for young preteen girls. Kiki, a young witch, ventures out on her own to do a year of training away from home. Accompanied only by her black cat Jiji . Unable to make potions like her mother, her only talent is to fly on a broomstick. Using that talent she opens a delivery service and flies packages all over the seaside town she settles in. She meets a boy who likes her and is in a sort of flight club. There is an incident with a crashing blimp and she ends up having to save him from it. The ending is kind of anti-climatic but most of Miyazaki’s movies are. Another great movie for the entire family.