Goro Miyazaki
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Kiki's Delivery Service (1989)
Directed by Hayao Miyazaki
influenced Earwig and the Witch (2021)
Characters Plot Themes
Hirasawa is both spirited (no pun intended) and shrewd as Erica; Terajima is an absolute hoot as Bella Yaga as she screeches and shrieks like the world will end; Toyokawa broods and grunts in a fitfully funny turn, while Hamada provides ample mirth in the feline role of Thomas that is reminiscent of Jiji in Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989).
A first run at a new medium with a breezy, light-on-plot escapade reminiscent of Kiki’s Delivery Service rather than the densely intricate narrative of Jones’ own Howl’s Moving Castle .
Bella Yaga’s familiar, a talking black cat named Thomas, is similarly reminiscent of Jiji in Kiki’s Delivery Service .
Ghibli fans will no doubt be reminded of “Kiki’s Delivery Service,” about another underage witch with a faithful feline sidekick, although “Earwig” isn’t nearly as charming, despite its having been drawn from a Diana Wynne Jones novel.
Additionally, evoking Kiki’s Delivery Service and other beloved Ghibli classics a few times only manages to emphasize the deficiencies here.
On-screen, the eponymous Earwig (Kokoro Hirasawa) follows in the footsteps of Spirited Away's Chihiro and Kiki's Delivery Service's titular figure.
Writers Keiko Niwa and Emi Gunji adapted a novel by Diana Wynne Jones, whose work also inspired the beloved “Howl’s Moving Castle.”
A first run at a new medium with a breezy, light-on-plot escapade reminiscent of Kiki’s Delivery Service rather than the densely intricate narrative of Jones’ own Howl’s Moving Castle .
Based on a novel by Diana Wynne Jones (whose novel, "Howl's Moving Castle," once inspired one of the elder Miyazaki's films), Earwig and the Witch finds a young girl plucked from an orphanage to become a witch's apprentice, only to discover her own magical history.
Earwig is based on a Diana Wynne Jones fantasy novel, just like one of the studio’s most successful films, 2004’s Howl’s Moving Castle .
The film is based on a children’s book by Diana Wynne Jones, whose Howl’s Moving Castle and Castle in the Air were both adapted into Hayao Miyazaki movies.
As with Howl’s Moving Castle before it, the source material comes from a children’s book of the same name by British author Diana Wynne Jones (in this case posthumously published after her 2011 death), but the disjointed storytelling here also falls short of the usual expectations.
Hotel Transylvania (2012)
Directed by Genndy Tartakovsky
influenced Earwig and the Witch (2021)
Visuals
Unfortunately, despite the occasional lively visual touches, and a playfully out-of-character '70s prog rock score by Satoshi Takebe, the ghoulish display too often conjures up a standard-issue Hotel Transylvania rather than an inspired Coraline .
But with Studio Ghibli – the home of Grave of the Fireflies – the bar is that little bit higher.
It doesn't have the sensational fantasy elements that other Studio Ghibli films like " Spirited Away " or " My Neighbor Totoro " have to capture your imagination and isn't nearly as captivating or heartbreaking as " Grave of the Fireflies ."
“Luca” may not pack the melodramatic punch of “When Marnie Was There” or offer a whisper of the heart that’s as powerful as that in “From Up on Poppy Hill,” but it’s buoyed by the same frizzante sense of personal freedom that informs even those second-rate Studio Ghibli films.
Romance is something Miyazaki has only brushed upon in his directorial works (he is apt to focus on it more in the films he writes but does not helm, like Whisper of the Heart or From Up on Poppy Hill), but the romantic element here is spectacular, quiet and gentle but astoundingly tender, touching, and poignant.
"The Wind Rises" is being marketed as the "farewell masterpiece" of Japanese writer-director Hayao Miyazaki, who brought the world "Spirited Away," "Howl's Moving Castle" and "Ponyo," as well as oversaw and contributed to "From Up on Poppy Hill" most recently.
Certain scenes in My Neighbor Totoro (1988) evoke a four-year-old's perspective with uncanny precision, and Miyazaki's screenplays for Whisper of the Heart (1995) and From Up on Poppy Hill (2011) achieve something similar in their portraits of early adolescent girls, making their experiences feel universal.
It finds room to stretch in several formative dream sequences, but for the most part threads its ideas through a precisely realized early-20th-century Japan, reminiscent of the bucolic landscapes of his son Goro Miyazaki's recent From Up on Poppy Hill .
He was ready to pass the torch to a younger generation, including his son Goro, for whose directorial effort From Up on Poppy Hill the elder Miyazaki wrote the script.
Studio Ghibli released " The Secret World of Arrietty " in US theaters last year and while Hayao Miyazaki was involved with contributing to the screenplay (which he also did for " From Up on Poppy Hil l"), his last animated film as director was " Ponyo " back in 2009 (" The Wind Rises " was released in Japan earlier this year and looks to be Hayao Miyazaki 's final film before retirement).