I’ve never watched a Studio Ghibli film before, at least not to my knowledge. One of my co-workers had an adorable stainglass thing with a cat on it and she said that it was from one of their films (Kiki’s Delivery Service iirc), and this company has been constantly on the periphery of many different genres that I love, but I really do struggle with films that only have subtitles, something that’s getting to be more of a struggle as I age. Luckily enough, Studio Ghibli has teamed up with Disney in the past to make English dubs and in this case they had a rock star cast doing some amazing work. Patrick Stewart, Uma Thurman, Shia LaBeouf, Edward James Olmos, and Mark Hamill are all here. The subject matter is appropriately heavy with a story that makes pretty good sense. I should note that the version that I watched was the SECOND English version, apparently there’s a shorter, less coherent version that was released about 15 years prior that Director Miyazaki has disowned.
If this is where the studio started I can see why they’re so highly regarded and I look forward to watching more.
