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I went through a Miyazaki phase some years ago. His films are a joy to watch and very layered.

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Do you have a favorite title, or a top three?

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1) Howl's Moving Castle

2) Spirited Away

3) Kiki's Delivery Service

It's been years since I've seen them and I would need to view them again to refresh my memory. Having said that, Howl's Moving Castle has always stayed with me.

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Interesting choice. Have you seen them dubbed or with subtitles?

Spirited Away is by far my top Miyazaki film, follow by My Neighbor Totoro.

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Why 'interesting'? I saw them on DVD and they were dubbed with American accents. Funnily enough, I didn't think anything of it. Do you think it makes a difference to the integrity of the films?

Spirited Away and My Neighbor Totoro are great choices but I enjoy and respect anything M has done. One of my all-time fave films is Grave of the Fireflies but I don't think it has anything to do with Miyazaki, correct? Interesting insight into Japanese culture under duress.

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You are right: why "interesting"? I guess it was just a comment on how different people like different things.

I must say I don't like dubbing. After all, voices/speaking is an integral part of a film. That's why I always try to watch the original versions. In Italy we have excellent dubbing actors, but it's strange when Robert De Niro and Sylvester Stallone speak with the same voice. Luckily, they have never worked together.

The first time I realized how wrong dubbing is, it was when I watched a cowboy movie on Japanese TV and John Wayne was speaking Japanese. Imagine that. OK, end of rant.

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I hear you. I also prefer to watch the original versions (with subtitles) but at the time, I only had access to the dubbed Miyazaki films on DVD; it would have been a far better experience if I had seen the original versions at the cinema but it wasn't to be.

Oh yeah, some of those dubbed westerns are funny! And those dubbed kung fu movies from Hong Kong! I've seen a few of those and I could never take them seriously. Rest assured that the dubbed Miyazaki films weren't too bad. I think they did a good job of marrying the voices to their characters.

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This is interesting to know, of course, but on a more general level, one of the things I like about Miyazaki's films is that not everything is explained as it would be in a Hollywood offering.

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You are right, though I'm sure there are things Japanese viewers get and foreigners don't because we didn't grow up in that culture.

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Apr 23Liked by Gianni Simone

I agree. He trusts us to use our imagination and intuition.

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An increasingly rare thing in the age of the emoji.

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