I love Studio Ghibli films, BUT

[bartholen_v1legacy]

...I can no longer ignore the fact that their endings are at best only good.

I just watched Whisper of the Heart with a friend of mine, and loved it. It was really heartwarming, cute and relatable. Save for perhaps Howl's Moving Castle, I've loved every single Studio Ghibli film I've seen. But the ending made me finally realize that they just don't end well. Only Totoro and Nausicaä have left me with a feeling of complete closure and no need to continue any further.

Almost every time the films end either abruptly, or feel rushed. At the end of WotH the final sentence was barely finished before the credits rolled. At the end of Ponyo she changes back to a human, and only 2 seconds later, credits. Princess Mononoke ends with a handful of very short scenes that serve only to tie the story up before the credits and give little to no sense of closure to the characters. How is it that the studio that's made the greatest animation films of all time which have moved me to tears again and again can't seem to end their films properly?

WHISPER OF THE HEART SPOILERS IN THE PARAGRAPH BELOW

I'm not asking for much. Even 30 seconds more in Whisper of the Heart would have made all the difference: just show us the couple holding hands, embracing, looking at the sunrise without saying a word while the camera pans up and fades to black. Just that alone would have made the film feel complete to me. I could even have ignored the sideplot about the main character's friend and her crushes which is left completely unresolved.

So what are your thoughts? Do you agree or disagree? How do you think these films should end (if you answer, you should probably put it in spoiler tags)? And just for discussion value, your favorite and least favorite Ghibli films and the reasons why?

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I can only speak for Miyazaki's movies, but I agree that some endings are... quaint.

Cagliostro, Nausicaa, Castle in the Sky, Totoro and Spirited Away are tightly devised. You get your protagonists walking away with a moral/mission accomplished. Lupin solves the case, Nausicaa restores world peace, the bad guys in Castle die and the good guys save the Castle, the girls from Totoro undergo a little catharsis and Chihiro walks away a more mature person.

Kiki and Porco Rosso seem to play on a more slice-of-life, atmospherical stories. I think one may find them unsatisfying in the end because they do not address the arc you think they were addressing. Porco in particular does nothing with the main character's curse, nor his love interest. Same with Kiki, except the proposed arcs aren't even obvious.

Regardin Mononoke and Howl, these are epic tales by comparison, involving many characters, plot points and situations. They're huge and embrace entire cosmologies as part of their universe. Like literary epics, if you've read any, they must end abruptly, almost capriciously. The Illiad doesn't feature a Trojan Horse - in fact, doesn't even depict the end of war, the narrative kinda simply stops altogether - and if you think Dante's Commedia is a cool depiction of hell, that's only about the first third of the book; the latter two thirds are incredibly boring exposition, with no climax of any sort.

 

[Casual Shinji]

In regards to Princess Mononoke... The movie puts forth a dilema for which there is no solution and thus no closure. The only way it could've had real concrete closure would've been by forcing it, and have one or two major characters from one side or the other die.

But in all honesty, Miyazaki is not a really good writer of scripts or dialoge. His talent lies in visual storytelling and emotion through animation, and having one incredible/quirky/beautiful scene followed by another seamlessly. My Neighbor Totoro and Kiki's Delivery Service are perfect examples of this, and are also my favourites of his work.

Least favourite is Porco Rosso. I really couldn't give a crap about anything that happened in that movie. And I fucking love Hayao Miyazaki.

 

[Palademon]

I'm not a fan of Studio Ghibli films. They seem overrated to me. Like a hollywood section of anime.
Acknowledge by those who would otherwise not be interested, and dubbed by famous actors rather than the usual voice actors.

But the reaosn I don't like them is mostly I find them uninteresting.
It seems like a weird complaint given it being anime, but because of their unique style is makes it more obvious that their characters look alike, which bothers me, especially since they have babyface.
And their attention to detail makes the inherently low framerate of anime obvious every second.

It would be saved if I enjoyed their style of storytelling or themes, but I really don't. Ponyo was the only one where I felt I actually enjoyed it. Maybe it's a age thing where I watched some of them too young to get them.

 

[Casual Shinji]

In my humble opinion, it's never so much been so much that they are not good at make endings as much they don not wish to force the movie to be longer than it has to be. I understand that in some movies such as Arriety it feels a little underwhelming, and even could have been approved on, but it's never really lessened the movie experience for me.

I kinda feel Arrietty is a missed oppertunity. There's a lot of great concepts underneath the writing of that movie, but it unfortunately never really surfaces. Like how there's a link between the everyday life of a borrower and Sho's heart condition.

 

[Lilani]

The Studio Ghibli films I've seen are:

-Kiki's Delivery Service
-Howl's Moving Castle
-Spirited Away
-Nausicaa
-Arietty
-Totoro
-Castle in the Sky
-Mononoke
-Ponyo
-Tales from Earthsea
-The Cat Returns

So basically I've seen their more recent/most publicized works, and these are the only ones I can speak for when I talk about their films. I definitely felt let down by Earthsea, in the end I didn't feel like the villain was a great threat. Or rather, the buildup to that final battle just didn't feel right. It just felt like...not enough happened.

The rest I'm pretty satisfied with, though. I feel like their films are just as much about the journey as the destination--and in some cases more about the journey[footnote]See: Ponyo, Spirited Away, Totoro.[/footnote]. I think my favorite is Howl's Moving Castle, I just love the music and the characters. The world is so rich and so much happens in just the span of a couple of hours. However, Spirited Away is a close second, and the rest I have generally good feelings about. If they aren't your thing, they aren't your thing. Or maybe you just haven't seen the "right" ones for you. Even though they are from the same studio, there are several different writers and the films follow many different formulas and story paths.

 

[Squilookle]

The non- Miyazaki Ghibli's I can usually take or leave, but Howl's Moving Castle aside- All of (Hayao) Miyakazi's films are great. I remember a fair bit of criticism being levelled at Laputa's ending but I didn't mind it. I was a bit bummed by Mononoke's ending, but like someone said- the situation having no solution is the whole point- the characters should thank their lucky stars it turned out as well as it did.

Porco is a special case for me though- it's my favourite, and initially I thought it just left everything unsaid. The more I watched it though, the more I picked up on the little clues near the end that did, in fact, reveal everything. And in the end, the non-forced method in which these arcs are tied up just made me respect the film all the more for it.

 

[scorptatious]

Funny, I'm currently playing Nino No Kuni which was done by Studio Ghilbi. After playing it a bit, my brother and I decided to watch Castle in the Sky.

I didn't think there was anything wrong with the ending. Sure, it was kinda short, and it ended with the main characters saying goodbye to the pirates. But I didn't mind at all. The movie overall was fantastic.

With Kiki's Delivery Service, I do remember the ending being somewhat abrupt. Of course, I don't mind. I thought the movie was still really good overall.

The only other Ghilbi film I've seen was The Secret World of Arrietty. And again, I didn't really find anything wrong with that ending. It wrapped everything up rather nicely to me.

Those are the only Ghilbi movies I've seen, so I can't say anything on stuff like Spirited Away or Whisper of the Heart.

 

[Silvanus]

Whisper of the Heart was one of my least favourite Ghibli films, but that's partially because I expected something a little more magical. I expected that talking cat to be somewhat more important, and have always been uninterested in young love as plot.


Hayao Miyazaki's are certainly the best, with Mononoke and Nausicaa in the top spots, I imagine. I've always found the endings to be well-devised and satisfying.



((Hrmm, I need to watch Laputa again-- now I think of it, I've only seen it once, and can't remember it well).

 

[Oinodaemon]

Well, that's your opinion isn't it? For instance, I kinda hate Whisper of the Heart. Fucking whiny brats. I'm a Miyazaki fan, no doubt, I've seen all of his movies at least once and currently own 7 of them.

I've never had the feeling that his movies ended poorly, but then, I kinda take the ending as a whole. As in, for me, the END of Princess Mononoke is the entire bit between the Forest Spirit losing his head and the credits rolling.