I Forgive You: When Marnie Was There

      Sometimes forgotten memories of the past can return to a person and help them come to terms with where they are now. Based on the book by Joan G. Robinson, Hiromasa Yonebayashi's Studio Ghibli film When Marnie Was There is one of those stories; a seemingly sad tale with an unexpected turn. Spoilers Ahead

    Once upon a time, there was a twelve year old girl named Anna. She has a low self esteem and suffers from asthma. She is also an orphan living with foster parents since she was around five. Her foster mother, Yoriko, notices that Anna is not necessarily happy and doesn't seem to show much emotion. After an asthma attack, Anna is sent away from her home in Sapporo to spend the summer out in the country with Yoriko's relatives, the Oiwas, in hopes of becoming a little healthier and a little happier. The Oiwas are jolly people and kind to Anna. Here Anna explores and finds a mansion in the marsh nearby, which looks to familiar to her. The marsh house is abandoned and Anna is told that the house used to be "a fancy vacation home for some foreigners." But on some nights, Anna sees that the house lights are on and that there's a mysterious young girl with blonde hair and loose curls living there. Anna eventually meets this girl and finds that her name is Marnie. Marnie is not in a particularly happy situation: She's lived in the marsh house since she was two and her parents spend most of their time away on business while Marnie is left alone and treated unkindly by Nan and the two maids. In a short time Marnie and Anna become very close, even though Anna only sees Marnie sometimes and the marsh house is still empty on most days. Will Anna become a happier person and discover who Marnie truly is? 

     Before we meet Marnie, we get a lot of time to get to know Anna. She's quiet and thinks poorly of herself. So when we do meet Marnie, the audience knows almost immediately that she is not quite like Anna. Marnie is outgoing and playful, and appears to have confidence. Like Anna, she is thoughtful. In her experiences with Marnie, Anna becomes more open and even laughs and smiles with Marnie. Anna is also able to make friends with another person and slowly shows more confidence and has more to say. Anna thinks that Marnie is the friend she never had, but in truth, Marnie is the friend that Anna had in her early life. At the end of the film we learn that the Marnie that Anna has been seeing and interacting with is Anna's deceased grandmother in her youth. After her parents died, Anna went to live with her grandmother Marnie, who loved her only grandchild very much. Sadly, she fell ill and passed away. Why was Anna seeing young Marnie? Was she a ghost or a hallucination? We don't know. What we do know is that Anna was reliving events in young Marnie's life, such as her ordeal in the silo. We also know that Marnie told stories about her life to Anna when she was little. Being at Marnie's childhood home may be why these things after a long time come back to Anna and why she was open to Marnie, why they were so close in a short time, and also why Marnie was able to help Anna come out of her shell a little bit and be a little happier. 

    When Marnie Was There is a story about acceptance.When Marnie was young, she greatly feared the silo not far from her home because of the stories the maids had told her about it. Marnie had attempted to face her fear, but was unsuccessful and was rescued by her sweetheart Kazuhiko. Anna relives this event with Marnie and wakes up in the silo alone with Marnie gone. Because of this Anna believes that she had left her there. She asks why Marnie would betray her and leave her behind. This whole part of the story is symbolic to how an older Marnie had become ill and died when Anna was still very young, thus "leaving" her. Watching Marnie leave the silo with Kazuhiko can also be symbolic of her dying and being reunited with Kazuhiko, who had died long before Anna was born. Marnie later begs Anna for her forgiveness from her window in the marsh house. Anna forgives Marnie because she loves her friend, and Marnie fades into the sunlight as though her spirit was now at peace and had accepted everything that had happened to her in her life. Anna's forgiveness towards Marnie is not only for being left at the silo, but in truth, for her grandmother passing away. After this Anna begins to truly accept that yes, her grandmother had died, and yes, her parents had died too. On top of knowing that her foster parents receive money because of her, Anna learns that none of this means that she is unloved. She makes peace and embraces who she is, because she was reminded of and came to terms with a time when Marnie was there.

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Our Own Inspiration: Kiki's Delivery Service

    Most of us leave home to take a shot at being independent in our late teens or early twenties. In Hayao Miyaki's Kiki's Delivery Service, our heroine goes out into the world when she's only thirteen. From a young age, Kiki will learn the importance of doing what you love and finding that purpose in your life and all that you do. Spoilers Ahead

  

  Once upon a time, a young witch named Kiki is thirteen years old. As is tradition, the time has come for her to spend a year away from home to begin training. With her black cat named Jiji as her only companion, Kiki takes to the skies on her broomstick on a night with a full moon to search for a place to train. Before long they come to a big city by the sea and decide to settle there. This city doesn't seem to have any witches and Kiki is stared at wherever she goes. Impressed with her flying abilities, Kiki is offered a job as well as room and board by Osono, who owns a bakery with her husband and is also expecting a baby. Because her best skill is flying, Kiki sets up her own delivery service at the bakery and flies all over town. But working hard along with struggling socially takes its toll. She becomes drained and loses confidence in herself, and as a result begins to lose her powers. With the the help of new friends Tombo and Ursula, will Kiki be able to find herself again and become the witch she's always wanted to be? Or will Kiki have to give up her training and return home? 

    

    Wh ile having to work hard in the big city, Kiki faces insecurity the way most adolescents do. Before she left for her trip, Kiki had a small group of friends her age. Kiki comes from a small town and is therefore probably used to this and may have known the same children all her life. In the city Kiki meets new p eople her age that dress differently. She wishes she had pretty clothes to wear like them and is reluct ant to be around Tombo and his group of friends. At the same time she wears her black dress because it is traditional for a witch in training, as she still greatly desires to become a good witch. Kiki looks different because she is a witch, but she also wants to fit in with the people her age as is natural. In short, Kiki ends up wanting to do something different and fit in at the same time; a conflict which partially contributes to her eventual tiredness and loss of powers. 

 

    Kiki's Delivery Service is a film where the characters directly say what the audience is meant to understand without having to read between the lines. Before she left for her training, Kiki's mother tells her that "what matters is the heart inside." While visiting Ursula  during her identity crisis, Kiki is reminded that a big part of what she does comes from within and remembers that " we fly with our spirit." Ursula is an artist and understands what Kiki is g oing through because she herself has had times when she had t o find herself and become inspired. "We each need to fi nd our  own inspira tion, Kiki. Sometimes it's not ea sy," she says. In a st ruggle to fit in and work hard at her delivery service, Kiki had become so caught up in these thing s that she forgot not just how she flies but w hy she flies. Kiki has been on a broom  since she was little and loves to fly. Kiki creates her del ivery service as a way of doing what she love s while also earning money. "Flying used to be fun until I sta rted doing it for a living." The stress of making ends meet can make you forget that you're doing what you love and why you love doing it. By the end of the film, Kiki is able to once again summon up her powers from with in herself to save Tombo's life. From then on, Kiki knows why she flies. She loves to fly for the thrill of it, and because she uses her flying abilities to serve others. 

 

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Connection To The Earth: Nausicaa Of The Valley Of The Wind

    Since the industrial revolution, our world has changed like never before. Both for better and for worse. Today we are facing and will continue to face the effects of pollution and global warming. In the films of Hayao Miyazaki, you will find environmental messages and themes; and Miyazaki's Nausicaa Of The Valley Of The Wind carries such points with intensity. Spoilers Ahead

     Once upon a time, a thousand years from now, the last few kingdoms of humanity struggle to survive in a world that is mostly covered by a jungle of toxic air, plants, and giant insects. These kingdoms are hostile and warlike, except for the Valley of the Wind. Here the people work hard and live their lives in peace, awaiting the day that the prophecy will be fulfilled when a person dressed in blue will come forth on fields of gold to restore mankind's connection with the earth. Ruling this valley is King Jhil and his daughter, Princess Nausicaa, a strong woman skilled in flying and technology. Very loved by her people, Nausicaa cares for all living things, having a gift for calming the Ohms and other insects so prone to anger towards humans. A millennium has passed since the Seven Days of Fire, a cataclysmic event in which the world was incinerated by Giant Warriors, giant humanoid beings created by humans as weapons. After the Seven Days of Fire, Giant Warriors went mostly extinct. But now an embryo containing an undeveloped Giant Warrior has been found underground by the Pejite and taken by the Tolmekians. After an airship containing the embryo crash lands into the Valley of the Wind, the Tolmekians arrive and take control. Now the human kingdoms stand at the brink of war and the insects could be driven to rage, and it's up to Nausicaa to convince both the humans and the insects that the killing must stop. Will Nausicaa be able to bring peace to her world? Or will the Valley of the Wind and the remainders of mankind be destroyed?

    The people in Nausicaa's time are well aware that the humans of the past are responsible for the harsh environment they live in now. Although this scenario is on the extreme side, it is still relevant and meant to make an impact on the audience. In the Valley of the Wind, the air is for the most part breathable. Because of the jungle outside the valley however, its poisons eventually take their toll on the elderly, causing their health to decline. This unfortunately sometimes happens in our own world when polluted environments have their effects on nearby residents, such as Japanese citizens contracting cancer after the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. In the film Nausicaa finds that plants that were once deadly can be made harmless and pure with clean soil and water, and that trees in the jungle are purifying the toxic soil that ends up in an underground world beneath the jungle. Miyazaki's message is clear: Now is the time to care for our plants, our water, our air, and our earth. 

   Nausicaa Of The Valley Of The Wind is one of the more violent of Miyazaki's films. It carries not only a message against pollution, but a message against war. The Giant Warriors were created by humans as weapons of war, and may represent the evils of nuclear weapons. Now in the time of Nausicaa, the Tolmekians seek to use the Giant Warrior as a means of destroying the toxic jungle and/or ruling the world once again; even though the use of the Giant Warriors in the past resulted in the Seven Days of Fire. Nausicaa does everything in her power to stop the fighting and killing among the different peoples around her. She doesn't want anyone else to die after the Tolmekians invaded her valley and her father was murdered. Miyazaki's message against war is also clear. We protect ourselves by caring for our environment, and by avoiding the violence and devastation of war. 

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It's A Big Responsibility: Ponyo

    Taking some kind of responsibility for someone you love is something most of us will have to face at some point in our lives. Some have to do this at a very young age, sometimes because they choose to, and sometimes because there is no other choice. Hayao Miyazaki's Ponyo is a coming of age story, but I also found that many of the characters lives are shaped by the responsibilities they do, or don't, take on. Spoilers Ahead.

   

    Once upon a time, a young goldfish left her home and was found on shore by a young boy named Sosuke. After naming the goldfish Ponyo, Sosuke takes it upon himself to care for her. Ponyo in turn comes to love Sosuke very much, but is taken back to her home unwillingly by her father, Fujimoto, a wizard who cares for the ocean with potions and other magic. Ponyo is no ordinary goldfish however. She and her many younger sisters are daughters of Fujimoto and Granmamare, the ocean Goddess of Mercy. Because of this, Ponyo has natural and powerful magic abilities. After having licked human blood off a cut on Sosuke's thumb, Ponyo begins to change into a little human girl, and uses her magic to break free from her father to return to the surface and Sosuke. In so doing, Ponyo disturbs the natural order. In order to reverse it, Sosuke will be tried to see if he really loves and embraces Ponyo as she truly is. Will Sosuke's love be true and save the world? And will Ponyo become fully human?

   Criticism concerning Ponyo: After watching the film, one might wonder about Ponyo's own sense of responsibility. She is without a doubt a wild child, and throughout the movie she does a few things that could be considered irresponsible: She runs away from home, and because of her desire to become human, she ends up opening and flooding a sealed room with a magic well in her father's home, resulting in the well and the potions in it to overflow and throw off the balance of nature. This causes the ocean to revert to a state of the Devonian age with the appearance of sea creatures that were once extinct. But worst of all, the moon comes closer to Earth and makes the ocean rise, putting most of the land underwater and forcing everyone to seek shelter on high ground. Ponyo comes from parents who have a big and unusual burden. Fujimoto raises the daughters while he and Granmamare both look after the ocean.          

    Naturally, Fujimoto is deeply alarmed and troubled by what has happened. Ponyo's mother, however, does not seem troubled at all. Rather, she knows just what to do and is mindful of Ponyo's happiness. Giving up her magic was the only price Ponyo had to pay to be human, and is never chastised for all the trouble she caused everyone else by causing what could have potentially been a catastrophic event. This is all resolved within a day thanks to Sosuke, and it is never revealed that anyone was killed or injured in the time that all this occurred. To settle this particular kind of criticism, it is important to note that whether in the form of a fish or a human, Ponyo is still a child, and was no doubt doing what many strong willed and stubborn children would do. Even so, if Ponyo had been made to take some degree of responsibility, it could have been more character development and more of a learning experience for Ponyo, other than learning what her father warned her: "You can't be human and magic at the same time."

    Sosuke loved and took the adult responsibility of taking care of Ponyo in a very short time of knowing her, and we don't fully know why. Although he only knew her at the time as a fish, Sosuke suspected that Ponyo was magical. It wouldn't be surprising if almost any child would want to care for a potentially magical pet fish. Sosuke is different because he is a very precocious child and takes the job of keeping Ponyo safe very seriously. After Sosuke gets to know Ponyo in her human form, he declares that he "...loves all the Ponyos! It's a big responsibility, but I really love her!" So what we do know is that for whatever reason, Ponyo was special to Sosuke from the very start. 

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