Many of good films can’t get enough understanding without good background music.  Movie directors in Japan, including even the genius director, Hayao Miyazaki,  were very lucky that they all lived in the same time with Joe Hisaishi.

Joe Hisaishi expresses any kind of human emotion in the music, it means his scores for films helped movie viewers feel the correct emotion in the movies and Joe’s music led them into the world of screen play.

Joe Hisaishi’s frist work on Hayao Miyazaki film was Nausicaa of the Valley of the Winds.  Joe Hisaishi still says that Nausicaa is the most unforgettable among his works.  He also says maybe he can’t compose that level of music now.

Probably he would keep on composing more masterpieces, however, the music quality of Nausicaa is still outstanding in Japanese film musics.

While, for fans, the most popular work of Joe Hisaishi seems ” Summer ” which was written for the film, Kikujiro, by Takeshi Kitano.

Apparently this melody has Japanese taste. And through this music, most of Japanese fans, me too, remember our summer days with bright sunshine, beautiful rivers with transparent water, the chirp of a cicada from woods, and nostalgic scenes we played with friends.

SUMMER seems to be liked by foreign countries’ people.  The feel of summer might mean the same over the countries’ border.

Also some fans say that the most tear-dropping work of Joe Hisaishi is ” One Summer’s Day”, which was used in the highest grossing movie of Japanese film history, called Spirited Away.    This tune gives us a real sentimental feeling. Some say they remember the time when they were innocent and naive to anything in the world in their childhood, and they tried their best in their life. In the movie this song is played when Chihiro eats a rice ball in the movie, and she starts crying when eating it.　Many had the same kind of experience in the past Japanese time, so they become sympathetic to Chihiro also by the magic sense of music.

When we listen to Joe Hisaishi’s music, recently we don’t need such memories in background because the music is already independently fantastic enough.  But it’s also true that his music bring us such memories of movies and our life with tremendous amount of emotion.

Long live Joe Hisaishi

Today’s topic is about Studio Ghibli Museum in Mitaka city, Tokyo. Some or many should know that this is the top animator of Japan, Hayao Miyazaki’s museum, and he also often work inside here.  When guests from the world come to see him, they are often invited into this museum for coffee tolk with Hayao Miyazaki ( what a lovely experience !).

In this studio, we can see many tear dropping animation characters like the robot ( see photo ) played in the Castle in the Sky, Cat bus and big Totoro doll in the movie, TOTORO.

Also probably it’s still playing short animation for visitors, even it’s short, many who saw it say it’s wonderful as always.

If you are a fan of Hayao Miyazaki films, it’s a good choice to visit while your trip in Japan.

Museum house is rather big as Japanese houses go,  yet it’s maybe small for visitors from the USA or such big countries.  Japan has small space only.

It’s often crowded on weekend. If possible it’s better for you going on weekdays.  It’s in Mitaka city in Tokyo, but actually it takes 1 hour or so to get there bu using train and walking from the train station if you come from center of Tokyo.

For ticket information or access, please see  http://www.ghibli-museum.jp/en

Enjoy your trip !

Especially at the beginning he answers about the civilization of the world. Reaction of the audience is interesting, too.

His comment about the films and the world we live is really fantastic in thinking about what the human really is.

It’s an interview with Hayao Miyazaki a few years ago and recently it’s updated on YouTube but please enjoy it when you have time.

Joe Hisaishi gave a concert in Paris in June this year, 2011.  I didn’t check if the concert was good or not.  Recently I found many videos on YOuTube, and it seems to
have been an extremely nice one.

Looking at the video, easily we notice that many are enjoying it with much emotional move.

Thinking of myself back in 1980′s when I first saw Hayao Miyazaki film, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Winds, the movie was too great and I was so much moved.   I again and again tried to see it, and I began to understand how the music in the movie was important to me. That was the first encounter with Joe Hisaishi.

After that, Hayao Miyazaki kept producing many masterpieces like Laputa, Totoro, Spirited Away, and Mononoke Hime.  In each of them, again the music was extremely touching and beautiful.

I thought the music composer is real genius then.

I didn’t expect that Joe Hisaishi would become this big artist or composer in the world.  Indeed it depends on the popularity of Hayao Miyazaki films at the first stage, without that, people don’t know the music.  But now we all know Joe Hisaishi independently is an outstanding composer without the fame of Hayao Miyazaki.

In the Paris concert videos, lots of people are very much emotional.  Probably their feeling is no different from how we feel about Joe Hisaishi music.  We also cry and are very  mcuh moved by his music in Japanese concerts, and often his music leads us to good memories with the movies or to the atmosphere when we saw the movies.

At the song Totoro in this video,  I think French people are enjoying the music with their Totoro memories in their life.

Joe helps us understand people far away from Japan.  Thank you Joe Hisaishi and people in this concert for giving me common feeling with you all.

First one is called ” A name of life “, Inochino Namae in Japanese.

This movie has the record of the box office of Japan.  It’s said that total viewers are more than 1000 people in Japan, so 1 out of 10 went to the theaters to see this movie.

Both vocal version and instrumental version are very nice.

In the same movie, Spirited Away, one more song is unforgettable. This song is sung at the end of the movie and it releases our soul to the real world leaving the world of spirit.  This is really beautiful and has something sweet and sad, but also gives us a gentle hope of tomorrow.

I enjoyed the songs today.

Among them, the music is also splendid.  Most of the songs of Miyazaki movies are composed by Joe Hisaishi.  He is a nationally beloved musician in Japan, and we all are moved by his works. We can’t tell exactly why, but it’s true that his sound and melody touches our soul in the deeper places.

Among his songs of Miyazaki Movies, I can list up many masterpieces like Princess Mononoke ( Ashitaka Sekki), Nausicaa of the Valley of the winds, and probably we can’t forget the songs from Spirited away and Howl’s moving Castle.

For me, if I needed to choose one song from them, I would probably select a song from Castle in the Sky.  This song is called KIMIWO NOSETE in Japanese, maybe the close English translation is like Carrying You.

This song is sung by an unknown singer then, but later this song remained as a top popular song of animation movies in Japan. Then she, the singer, also gradually became famous.  Her main job is conveying this song to the next generation by her beautiful voice.  She continued her job at My Neighbour Totoro.  W can hear her nice voice again in the movie.

Anyway, this song, Kimiwo Nosete, is a real masterpiece with such a pure voice and unforgettable melody.  Later this song was picked up as an elementaly school’s and junior high school’s music textbook song, so younger generation of Japanese people know this song well because they sing it at schools.

I like it very much. When I hear it, I remember when I was really young and when I was looking for my dream with a heart of young boy.

HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE is one of the representing works of master animator, Hayao Miyazaki.  This film still has the 2nd highest grossing record of Japanese whole movie history, as a reference, NO.1 movie is also by Hayao Miyazai, it’s Spirited Away. And If I say more, NO.3 is again by the same director, Hayao Miyazaki, it’s Princess Mononoke.

As this proves, you can understand how Hayao Miyazaki is a natonal treasure of Japan.  Without him, we Japanese could not have enjoyed the present life time. He showed us a joy of life, and the value of a dream.  In other words, he might have been a mental leader for Japanese virtue.

HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE became a mega hit movie as always. But some say, after seeing it, this movie is complicated in story and not simply moved like when Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, Laputa, or Nausicaa. I also agree to some extent to that opinion.

One thing we need to understand is that Hayao Miyazaki never makes same types of movies. We often expect the best movies in our mind, but for him, it’s just boring to produce the same type.  This movie may be a little confusing when following the story.  But I don’t think it’s not so important problem in this case.

Please look at the next video first. This is the main theme melody of this movie, and it’s played by the genius composer, Joe Hisaishi.  First, we can ease our mind with this beautiful song.

Howl’s moving castle was made for old people, Hayao Miyazaki once said.

He usually makes movies for young children or at maximum, children to young adult.  But here he tried to explore to the new border. He says he wanted to draw about the old woman’s simply beautiful love. I suppose one of the reasons for this motive was that Hayao Miyazaki also became old, 60′s. 

When Hayao Miyazaki was young, he could pursue more active story and he showed us huge dream or ambition of human, which was a moving encounter for us.  But now, he is trying to show the old person’s beauty of mind, I think.  Who can deny his way of work ?

Story often changes it’s pace and stages, so some may think it’s confusing.  But we should lay ourselves down in the stream of his animation work.  His animation,again, is truly beautiful. It’s sinply a work of art.  Also the story contains a lot of beautiful themes.

Elder people’s life style,  Love as humanity and love as beyond age, Ideal family form and family love, Love between a child and old woman, Love can overcome hardship, and concept of life.  These are all included in the story. I think Hayao Miyazaki wanted us to FEEL the genuin love of human, rather than thinking something in the movie.

In the story, I like the child, Markle.  He is a little saucy for the first part of the movie, but he gradually likes the old woman, Sophie as his family. And he cries when Sophie, the old woman, seems to be apart from him. It’s beautifully expressed about the transit of the child heart.

Also, the witch of the waste is a really bad woman for the first stage.  As the story goes on, she comes back to the wonderful and lovely old lady.  Agian, Sophie and Markle take care of her because she is too old to eat or walk by herself.  The witch of the waste spelled Sophie to become old woman from teenager. Sophie should resent the witch, Sophie take care of her as human too.

As a top theme of this movie, we should feel ( not think ) about Sophie. She often turns to be young teenager in the story.  You may be confused why. But we should feel her words and heart.  When Sophie expresses strong love to Howl, she becomes young.  Or when she speak about Howl or think about Howl, the power of love makes her young again beyond the power of spell of the witch. It’s not a difficult story as far as we feel it.

Sophie’s kiss with love, at the end, breaks all the spells on the all cast. The love is a simple human love, and the strongest love of Sophie to Howl fianlly takes Howl back to a human from a devil.

Beautiful ending song makes us happy and we feel like we don’t want to leave the world of Miyazaki animation. It’s simply a Miyazaki magic we have many times experienced.

As for me, I didn’t like it so much for the first time. But I understood well what Miyazaki wanted to tell.  Now I like this movie very much.

I know that reason why I didn’t like it so much.  When I saw it first time, I was young.  Now I’m old enough to feel Miyazaki’s message directly into my heart.  I’ll repeat it, this movie was made for older people, Miyazaki said.

If you don’t understand this movie now, pleaes see it again when you think you might have grown old. 

This movie, HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE is, I ‘m sure, a true masterpiece.

]]> http://www.japanpress.info/archives/1134/feed 0 http://www.japanpress.info/archives/858 http://www.japanpress.info/archives/858#comments Fri, 13 Nov 2009 14:36:39 +0000 travelman http://www.japanpress.info/?p=858 If you are a Joe Hisaishi fan, or if you like Hayao Miyazaki’s movies, this CD is a top recommendation. Joe Hisaishi has released many CDs in the past, but in focusing Ghibli concerned music or movie music, many fans in Japan pick up this CD as Hisaishi’s best.

JOE HISAISHI -ENCORE- has reputed very high and the songs in this CD is real masterpieces.

1. Summer （映画『菊次郎の夏』）  Kikujiro’s summer
2. Hatsukoi （映画『はつ恋』）  Hatsukoi
3. One Summer’s Day （映画『千と千尋の神隠し』）  Spirited Away
4. The Sixth Station （映画『千と千尋の神隠し』）  Spirited Away
5. Labylinth Of Eden （地上の楽園）  Paradise on the earth
6. Ballade （映画『Brother』）  Brother
7. Silencio D E Parc Guell （I Am） 
8. HANA-BI （映画『HANA-BI』） 
9. Ashitaka And San （映画 『もののけ姫』）  Princess Mononoke
10. La Pioggia （映画『時雨の記』） 
11. Friends （Piano StoriesII） 

All the songs’ are arranged extremely fantastic. Especially Spirited Away’ s One summer day, Summer from Kikujiro, Princess Mononoke, and Hana-bi are real art works of music.

Released year was 2002. It’s old, but still many fans keep listening to this as Hisaishi’s top work and this CD never stop collecting new fans.

So this news is probably too early for us to be over the moon.

Ponyo is targeted only to children, but Astroboy is for both children and adults.  Hayao Miyazaki and Osamu Tezuka are both masters of Japanese animation, so if they both are nominated, our heart will be divided into two parts.  Both works are unforgettable and especially Osamu Tezuka already passed away, so some might think he should get a prize as he died too fast before Japanese animation went out the world and he didn’t get enough prize for his splendid works.

Hayao Miyazaki once took Academy Award with Spirited Away.  Although the award is certainly great prize, their works are beyond any works.  They already gave enough joy to us for our better life.