Alright, gotten through Totoro and Nausea— er, Nausicaa.
Totoro was not bad. I wouldn't call it especially great, but it was a fun, cute little film. Not really a ton to say on it though, other than that apparently I watched the original dub as opposed to the dub Disney made in 2000-something. Don't know if that really matters, probably not, and I don't think I'll watch it again just because it's dubbed by different actors. If I ever watch it again, I might look at the Disney dub, but for now, I'm fine with the original dub.
Speaking of dubs, apparently Nausicaa's original dub went above and beyond the definition of "bad dub," meaning that the story was changed, character names were massively changed, and there was almost a half hour of footage cut. This led to this:
Studio Ghibli and Miyazaki have asked fans to forget its existence and later adopted a strict "no-edits" clause for future foreign releases of its films. On hearing Miramax co-chairman Harvey Weinstein would try to cut Princess Mononoke to make it more marketable, one of Studio Ghibli's producers sent an authentic katana with a simple message: "No cuts".
Fortunately, an unedited dub was released, which I saw. As for the film itself, I thought it was pretty good. Still nothing substantial enough to make me want to praise Miyazaki as everyone else does. He animates beautifully, but for the most part the films' stories just don't really grip me. But I did enjoy Nausicaa, thought it was a pretty well-made film with a good story and characters and character relationships.
Onward to Castle in the Sky and Spirited Away.
