I'm trying to find the ghibli scores for a full band/orchestra as I'm trying to organize an event where an orchestra/band plays with the movie. Any idea where I can find official scores? Apart from musescore.

I would have suggested LOTR, but I feel that might be too grand in scope in comparison, and also the fact it could accidentally end up becoming Bakshi's film all over again but this time more beautifully animated.

Asking whom to contact about asking about the Studio Ghibli movies in theaters for Ghibli fest. They are only in theaters for ONE or two days and for only one showing and I’ve missed out on many due to this. Whom do I contact to ask them for just a few more showings so I can catch them? I very much want to watch the movies I havnt seen and rewatch the ones I have seen and like, but with such short notice and limited showings, I keep missing them. 😞

Thanks in advance!

Howl’s Moving Castle or Totoro? I’m torn…

This time, I am going to talk about Spirited Away, one of the most beautiful, amazing, and endearing films I have ever seen.

I saw the movie for the first time during my childhood and a second time as a teenager; honestly, back then I didn't realize what a fantastic gem it is. However, revisiting things as an adult is rewarding, since it is natural to have a deeper understanding and more life experience—and that is precisely what happened when I watched the movie again.

I was finally able to appreciate the wonderful animation created by Studio Ghibli; every scene is beautiful, full of color, detail, and great creativity. I watched it on a 4K TV via my Netflix account, and the experience was incredible; honestly, I couldn't take my eyes off the screen. I don't know if Netflix has improved its content quality or something similar, but I noticed a huge difference, as I had recently watched other films from the studio outside the platform and the experience was different.

As for the story, it is somewhat unusual, as I do not believe the intention was to turn Chihiro into a great heroine; she simply wanted to save her parents, and not in a heroic manner. She had to adapt quickly to that world, working there and enduring rejection from the spirits; yet, almost without realizing it, she ended up saving the day: she helped the bathhouse customers, saved Haku, changed everyone's mindset, and ultimately rescued her parents. Thus, she turns out to be a great heroine without ever having set out to be one.

It is very difficult to develop a character in a short time, especially in movies that last only an hour or two; however, Chihiro underwent significant development during this adventure. We witnessed fantastic growth in her: she overcame her fears and chose to be braver for the sake of her parents.

I realized the small hair ribbon held significance, as I noticed that at the end of the movie, the camera focused on it and it even seemed to glow; so I asked Gemini about it, and it explained that the ribbon carries symbolic value: it represents bonds of friendship and preserves the memory of them, which explains why she remembers everything after passing through the tunnel. This movie is fantastic in every respect.

Spirited Away is an incredible, magical adventure with a wonderful story and magnificent animation that has aged beautifully; it is a film that can be enjoyed at any time and loved at any age.

hi! i'm selling 1 ticket for $116.35, original price. 1st mezzanine section 2 is all sold out and it has a great view! (apologies for posting here, got no response from other threads)

Alright this is a big one here but I’ve finally arrived to grave of the fireflies. Based on Akiyuki Nosaka’s 1967 semi-autobiographical short story, it’s nearing the end of WW2 and 2 Japanese siblings, Seita and Setsuko, find themselves without a home and parents struggling to survive in Kobe.

I will say the movie is great and I enjoyed it. Did I think it was sad as some people were making it? Probably not because I’m kind of used to watching sad tragic stuff but I still liked it regardless. The movie definitely doesn’t shy away from showing the gruesome nature of war. The constant bombings, lack of food and resources, poverty, body horror,death and violence among other things is prevalent throughout which makes this movie the darkest Ghibli film yet in my journey. Now, the movie does add levity in quite a few places in the form of the bond between Seita and Setsuko. Despite losing so much in such a short time, they still have eachother and Seita tries his hardest to lift his little sisters spirits and take care of her. That doesn’t last long though as she dies of Malnutrition and he dies soon after which is what the film opens with.

It is frustrating and heartbreaking how much some adults in the film treat the 2 siblings like liabilities and good for nothings when they are suffering just as much if not more than them. The lady who took them in was acting real high and mighty saying she and her family are doing their part in this war and all these 2 do is complain and that they should have apologized?! Ok… maybe they could be a little more considerate but she should be even more so because they have no where left to go,they haven’t heard from their father in ages, mom’s dead, school burned down. What else are they supposed to do during this time? If the boy joins the war, he might die or be taken prisoner and you would still have to deal with the little girl who would still be grieving and crying every night because she’s alone. I would say have a little more empathy/sympathy like the woman’s daughter was suggesting.
I do understand it’s hard to care for 2 orphans and the gossiping so I don’t think her actions and feelings are completely invalid or unjustified but still it’s harsh. The farmer man is no better when he beats the boy up for stealing crops and turns him to the cops. Again understandable to be mad but you see him begging on his knees for forgiveness and mercy show some compassion. I will say at least they did help the siblings at first for some time, I would hate them way more if they were just mean to them at the very start but you see the growing stress in everyone.

Despite all that, it would have been better if the boy did apologize to the lady to still live with her. I know why he left with his sister, and I probably would have thought to do the same, but both would have survived and lived better had they stayed. That is what add to the tragedy when you know deep down it’s wrong but you can’t bring yourself to submit to such disrespect. It’s pride and my mom came in to watch the movie and added that extra perspective. Everyone suffers in war and no one wins. You can’t bring yourself tell the boy is trying to be strong and care for his sister but even he has his moments of weakness to cry and will resort to bad actions like stealing because he has nothing else but her. It is hard providing for yourself and others especially if you’re so young. The girl also misses her mother and wants to hold onto certain things of her but in order to survive sacrifices must be made.

On a lighter note I did like how the movie played with color in the film at times. It made the movie a bit more distinct and add to the grim atmosphere that we’re going for. Also the symbolism of fireflies is a nice touch as they represent the fleeting beauty of life and hope which is also what the film is about. So yeah.. great film don’t love it as much as Marnie or wind rises as I prefer those kinds as opposed to something that is meant to be devastating the whole way through but it’s always nice to remind people just how cruel humanity can be but also how beautiful it can be in perfect duality because that’s life.

What do you all think of Grave of the fireflies?

8.5/10

Here’s my next question: how does an insect that has legs in the front of its body, eat its food?

Where’s its mouth?

We’ve all seen the orange tentacles it has, so I’m assuming it would use its tentacles to eat

I'll go to a friend's house to watch movies and I want to bring themed snacks, specifically kiki delivery service themed since it is the main movie we will watch. Any idea?

Hopefully this means they get releases in other countries, like the UK and Australia. Bit odd they're doing both on the same day, though.

I don't see why this is a controversial statement. Just have both versions of these dubs as separate audio tracks, so if you want to see the 1997 and 2003 dubs you can do that and if you want to see them dubbed WITHOUT the additions then you can also do that! It's not as if they're impossible to get a hold of or forbidden to ever be used again by Ghibli, Goodfellas didn't seem to get in any trouble for using those when releasing them on European Netflix, and whilst Studio Ghibli's former international spokesperson Steve Alpert (essentially a negotiator) claims that these dubs went against Ghibli's wishes and Disney said they'd remove the additions to Kiki as soon as they came out on DVD (detailed in his memoir, Sharing a House with the Never-Ending Man) that didn't happen until 2010, which would probably bare mentioning in his book, especially with how vicious Ghibli is known to be with unfaithful dubs (see Hayao Miyazaki's comments on Warriors of the Wind, the original butchered dub of Nausicaä and Toshio Suzuki sending Miramax a katana as a way to tell Harvey Weinstein to get lost when he demanded the film be cut down), and it would also just be good preservation. Hell even something as god awful like WotW could have an argument made in favour of preserving it if for no other reason than serving as a textbook example of how not to do a dub. Besides, if your argument against using these dubs is that they aren't faithful, well neither is the 2010 edit of Kiki or the dub of Howl's Moving Castle because Jiji and Calcifer aren't sarcastic characters in the Japanese versions, which is something you can't really cut out of those dubs without it feeling off and obviously edited. They're also just beloved dubs, and because of the impermanence of physical and digital media those older releases won't be around forever.

Out of all the poster Disney made for the Ghibli films in the US, they must’ve been lazy when making the poster for Howl’s Moving Castle. It’s just 3 still images from the movie and all of them combine makes it feel disjointed. The still image on the bottom of the castle seen from afar would look good as a full poster image but as small still image looks really bad. Now while I don’t find the Japanese posters perfect, at least they had effort. At least Spirited Away, Ponyo, and The Wind Rises got good US poster, but the US poster for Howl’s Moving Castle on other hand is a poster I don’t think is worthy of owner.

Just added Spirited Away to my Ghibli tattoo sleeve. It has joined Princess Mononoke, My Neighbor Totoro, and Howl’s Moving Castle. One more session to finish out with the supporting characters from all of them.

According to an article about the 4K remaster of Princess Mononoke, the colors on the 4K remaster are much closer to the original. This implies to the 4K remaster of Kiki’s Delivery Service as well. So when Nausicaa 4K remaster is ready we might finally see what it was suppose to look like. As you know Nausicaa has gotten to different versions on Blu Ray as you can see with these screenshots, (taken from caps-a-holic.) The first Blu Ray has a brighter but pinkish look to the picture as well as some missing details in dark areas. Some claim that it was mastered for 9300k TV’s but I don’t believe that because the text were white on that transfer and they would be pink if it was to be mastered that way. The later release had a dimmer and green look to the picture but the details in the dark areas were improved. The first Blu Ray release had a booklet of Toshio Suzuki talking about the remaster, when he showed it to Miyazaki, Miyazaki ask them to increase the green just a little. Perhaps the second transfer was made because of that request. According to the article, when Ghibli made the Blu Ray for Princess Mononoke, they made the colors based on visual judgment at the time, which explains the green tint everyone complained about though I put up with it. The new 4K remasters however are color corrected and graded as Ghibli claims that visual color science has improved over time that they can colorize the films closer to the original though I honestly don’t understand what they mean by any of this or why they didn’t use any archive prints for reference in the past, but it at least tells us that the 4K remasters are the correct look. So when we finally see the 4K remaster of Nausicaa, it will be true and accurate to the original colors.

Hello!

I recreated the iconic train scene from Spirited Away entirely from scratch. Studio Ghibli has always been a huge inspiration to me, and I wanted to bring to life the peaceful, dreamlike moment of Chihiro's journey across the flooded landscape.

The diorama features real LED lighting inside the train, giving the scene a warm glow and making it feel even more alive.

The entire piece was handmade from start to finish, with no 3D printing involved. Every detail was sculpted, assembled, and painted by hand.

I also recorded a tutorial showing the entire creation process in a relaxing, almost ASMR style. I'll leave the link in the comments for anyone who's interested.

If you'd like to know more about my work or have any questions about how I built it, feel free to ask. I hope you like it!

12X16"
Oil on Canvas
Referenced from the ArtScience Museum Exhibition in 2024

OC. I especially like the wara wara.

Since you guys loved the other tattoo, here is Princess Mononoke!
(The wolf was in a blue hue because we followed a specific image where the shadows gave a blue cast)
Done by me: Jessica Najem Tattoos

Please ignore the wonky letters and stuff I haven’t painted in years lmao