I think the next big Ghibli director will be Hiromasa Yonebayashi (he directed Arietty). I just hope that next time, he'll make a Yonebayashi movie this time instead of a Miyazaki film (he wrote Arietty.)
It's a good listen. I think it's cool he's going out on a more serious project that's not geared towards children. I honestly didn't know there were issues like that happening in Japan. I look forward to watching the movie.
I hope I can see this one in the cinema - the Philosophical reasoning behind not only making this film but making this film as his last film is fascinating to me.
Miyazaki faces have two modes, lovably derpy, and unrelentingly bad ass. I don't know why they turn out funny sometimes, I'm guessing his methods, while genius, produce mixed results. Also, sometimes the animators drawing the frames aren't as good as the ones designing the characters. Look at MLP, the animations are pretty good, but every so often you see a scene by "that one animator" that can't figure out how pony legs work and decides not to bother researching at all. Even the best studios hire these guys.
I saw Only Yesterday around 10 years ago when TCM aired it. Frankly, I thought it was pretty boring, and I suppose Disney agreed as well. They didn't bother dubbing it, or even give it a proper release.
Only Yesterday played as a double feature with Ocean Waves in Seattle a few years ago, and I liked Ocean Waves better. It is still a movie worth seeing if you haven't because Ghibli.
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It's a good listen. I think it's cool he's going out on a more serious project that's not geared towards children. I honestly didn't know there were issues like that happening in Japan. I look forward to watching the movie.
It releases in late January, but you download it digitally off Amazon right now.
Looks like a solid drama/slice-of-life piece.