Tonight, while out on our balcony, I saw a raccoon dog, called tanuki (狸) over here, crossing the road 20 metres above the ground on an electricity cable... in the middle of Tokyo.
This isn't the first time. I also saw one around the corner a few months back, though most of my Japanese mates poo-hoo the thought since we live just 15 minutes by train from Shibuya. Others say tanuki do in fact live here in the city because it's warmer and there's more food, and I'm pretty sure I know what I saw.
For me these are the coolest critters, when you grow up (like I did) back in Australia with possums and their guttural noises, though I know raccoons are just as disregarded by many North Americans.
Still, they're better than squirrels. Having been bitten by a particularly cute squirrel in Central Park, one that looked like a hand-puppet but was actually an evil little tyrant, I think I have a good grasp on the comparison.
Here in Japan the local raccoon dog is historically regarded a little differently. For starters the wild tanuki has disproportionately large testicles, a feature that has inspired humorous exaggeration in artistic depictions.
In old stories (and some more recent brethren) they're reputed to be mischievous and jolly, a master of disguise and shapeshifting, but somewhat gullible and absent-minded.
For starters there's the yarn "Kachi-kachi Yama" which features a tanuki that wallops an old lady and then serves up her to the unsuspecting husband as soup.
Writer/director Hayao Miyazaki dabbled with plucky women in his anime previously, most notably with the character of Fujiko Mine in the Lupin III series – see The Castle of Cagilostro (1979) just for starters.
He also had younger heroines like the Pippi Longstockingesque Mimiko in Panda! Go Panda!
But in 1984, in Kaze no Tani no Naushika (風の谷のナウシカ Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind), with Nausicaä herself – the heroine of this sci-fi/post-armageddon action/fantasy tale, and saviour of the world it chronicles – we see the tell-tale signs of female strength that invade later Miyazaki classics like Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi (千と千尋の神隠し Spirited Away, 2001).
The story here revolves around a world treading water (rather than on the mend) a thousand years after the apocalyptic war that’s poisoned the environment. Scattered settlements fight to survive, and one of these is the peaceful Valley of the Wind. The people here are ruled over by an ailing king and his willful, charismatic daughter Nausicaä – and all soon find themselves in a struggle not only with menacing giant insects but against militias from rival kingdoms and the threat of a return to the destructive old ways.
Amidst the action, intrigue, prophecies and surreal toxic jungle set-pieces are another couple of Miyazaki’s favourite themes: an appreciation of and support for the natural world around us, fantastic flying machines, and a huge, destructive robot.
Most Japanese people you meet will know this movie, they’ve all seen it as kids (and often as adults), and many cite it when they talk about favourite anime movies in their lives.
It’s rated in the personal Top 5 for anime director Kenji Kamiyama (Eden of the East), and Tokyo DJ/producer Jin Hiyama rates Nausicaä as his second-favourite anime movie of all time. “It’s the combination and comparison of this grotesque world with her beautiful mind and her honesty,” he raves.
It also has one of the best, most memorable soundtracks ever composed by the prolific Joe Hisaishi (Hana-bi). I've lost count of how many times I've heard little kids and their parents humming the iconic theme music.
Still, there are some important things to keep in mind when it comes to Nausicaä.
For starters the earlier manga series (also by Miyazaki) is a far more comprehensive and telling journey.
“You must read the manga,” urges musician Lili Hirakawa. “While the movie is great, it doesn’t tell you nearly enough about this world."
Additionally, this ground-breaking movie originally entered the West back in the ‘80s via a badly dubbed and horrendously edited version on VHS called Warriors of the Wind – an excruciating cut that makes little sense and a bitter learning curve for both Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli, who've since insisted on a “no edits” overseas licensing clause.
The edits, however, have nothing on the cover.
That art (left) from the video cassette didn't even feature principle character Nausicaä at all - save for that lame ring-in in the top right-hand corner. Instead the foreground is dominated by a trio of males characters I'm pretty certain aren't in the film at any point, not even closeted away driving the tanks.
Fortunately an uncut and re-dubbed DVD version of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, with (even better) the original Japanese dub and good English subtitles, became available around the world in 2005, although I picked up my copy earlier on from Studio Ghibli here in Japan.
And the verdict on the ‘real’ version, in spite of the disclaimers? Quite simply brilliant - just avoid that VHS predecessor at all costs.
It's hard to believe it's been 25 years since Hayao Miyazaki founded Studio Ghibli, straight after releasing their landmark epic Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (alias 風の谷のナウシカ, Kaze no Tani no Naushika, 1984).
While Nausicaä was groundbreaking stuff in and of itself, Miyazaki - the animator/director behind it - later set about with Ghibli to change completely the way in which we perceive animation, via the release of Spirited Away (千と千尋の神隠し, Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi) in 2001.
But if you really want to look at the heritage behind the latest Studio Ghibli international offering – Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea (崖の上のポニョ, Gake no Ue no Ponyo), out now in Australia and North America even though it was actually released in Japan almost two years ago – you need to funnel short-attention-spans back beyond Spirited Away.
There were a bevy of equally vital Miyazaki/Ghibli offerings sandwiched between 1984 and 2001, often with a pinch or two of their hallmark moments of freestyle genre-defying, refreshing humour, and an implicit disarming madness.
All these movies are a gem within their own right, each and every one laden with legions of fans pushing this or that as the Holy Grail of Ghibli anime.
For some, My Neighbour Totoro(となりのトトロ, Tonari no Totoro, 1988) stands highest among these and I'd probably pipe up in their favour.
While nowhere near as thematically complex as Spirited Away or Nausicaä – the titular character here indulges in lots of top-flying, snoozing and cat bus travel – the real stars of this Miyazaki flick are four-year-old Mei and her older sister Satsuki, along with the idyllic Japanese rural backdrop that the animator/director seems to believe has been lost.
The other Miyazaki movies are equal treats in completely diverse ways. Think action and adventure in Castle in the Sky (天空の城ラピュタ, Tenku no Shiro Laputa, 1986), witches and adolescence in Kiki's Delivery Service (魔女の宅急便, Majo no Takkyubin, 1989), flying pigs and anti-fascism in Porco Rosso (紅の豚, Kurenai no Buta, 1992), environmentalism in Princess Mononoke(もののけ姫, Mononoke-hime, 1997), and just about everything else in Howl's Moving Castle (ハウルの動く城, Hauru no Ugoku Shiro, 2004).
Despite being now aged 69 (his birthday was in January), and having threatened to retire several times over in the past decade, Miyazaki continues to be the international golden boy of Japanese animation thanks to a belated Oscar in 2004 for Best Animated Feature (for Spirited Away) – and for this "latest" movie, Ponyo, which was an entrant in the Venice Film Festival and was officially submitted for nomination at the next Oscars (but missed out in favour of American fare like Pixar's Up, Coraline and Disney's The Princess and the Frog).
There's also a new Ghibli movie in the works. Called The Borrower Arrietty (借りぐらしのアリエッティ, Karigurashi no Arrietty), it's set for release in July - although this time directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi rather than Miyazaki. Yonebayashi previously did Key Animation on Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle and Ponyo.
With this latest romp Miyazaki has here seen fit to reinvent his vision once again through the wondrous eyes of children. In this case those eyes belong to a changeling young fish-girl, the Ponyo of the title, who goes AWOL from her dad's underwater lair to explore the big wide world but ends up instead stranded in a small fishing village where five-year-old Sosuke lives.
Already the ages should give you the gist of what to expect, with the wealth of imagination owned by a five-year-old allowing Miyazaki open slather to create a freewheeling visual platform for the madcap rush that ensues, during which mistaken vengeance, metamorphosis, manic driving, extinct fish and Noah-type floods all take a role.
It's a far a simpler story-telling technique at play here that owes much more to My Neighbour Totoro than to Spirited Away.
Even so, Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea comes across as a visually stunning interpretation of the archetypal fairy tale ("The Little Mermaid"), recast within a Miyazakian dimension that recalls all the best elements of the director's earlier films (especially, for me, Panda! Go, Panda!), along with a bubbling positivity that's been infectious enough to wear down even movie reviewers with a penchant for the cynical.
Ponyo in her human form also bears an unerring resemblance to my 4-year-old daughter Cocoa, so she won me over in no time.
No wonder that the film was released on more screens than any other domestic movie when it was released in Japan in 2008, nor that it took in excess of $150 million at the Japanese box office.
You have to rear-vision yourself way back to 1972 to see where it all really began, 27 years ago with the anime crafted by a young Hayao Miyazaki (then aged 31) and his mentor, director Isao Takahata.
Thirteen years later the duo would found Studio Ghibli (just after releasing their landmark epic, Kaze no Tani no Naushika, or Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, in 1984), and later still change the way we perceive animation with the release of Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi (Spirited Away) in 2001.
But if you really want to look at the heritage behind the most recent Studio Ghibli offering Gake no Ue no Ponyo (Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea, which has finally hit the Western world through its English dub) along with next year's Karigurashi no Arrietty (The Borrower Arrietty, directed by Ghibli animator Hiromasa Yonebayashi), you need to channel your attentions back beyond Spirited Away and further in time to the early '70s, back to a little show called Panda! Go Panda! and then wonder... Is this the most insane anime ever made?
Well, perhaps not; there was a sequel (Panda! Go Panda!: Rainy Day Circus), released the following year. And, really, you have to watch them both back-to-back for the real lunacy to sink in.
The original press release from distributors Toho was clue enough. “Mimiko lives with her grandmother beside a bamboo grove,” it reported in suitably stilted English. “One day Mimiko's grandmother goes away for a while, leaving Mimiko to herself. A baby panda appears in the garden along with its father, Papa Panda. Mimiko asks if Mr. Panda could be her father too, and he agrees.”
And that’s it. No further warning. Nothing.
In truth, after one viewing you’ll come away convinced that Mimiko is better described as Pippi Longstocking after having sucked up too much caffeine, while Papa Panda is a psychotic prototype-critter for Miyazaki’s later cherished title character from Tonari no Totoro (My Neighbour Totoro, 1988).
