EZAnime - Episode 9 "Castle in the Sky"

What a lovely little episode. Castle in the Sky really captures this good, wholesome sense of adventure in a way that few other movies, animated or otherwise, manage to do. I liked Brad's comment near the start about how apparent this movie's influence is in games. I felt the same way when I watched Nausicaa last year. It felt like I'd found the missing link. This common ancestor to dozens of games, movies, and anime I'd enjoyed in my life. I've got an idea I've been meaning to pitch. Would you and Brad consider doing a short episode (30 - 40 minutes) where you briefly talk about your personal history with anime? How were you introduced to anime? What was your favorite anime as a child? As a teenager? As an adult? What do you see in an anime that makes you think "I want to watch that!". That sort of thing. I think it would be nice to get a sense of where our hosts are coming from as the episodes stretch into the double digits.

Jay Zifer

I mostly watch anime movies when I'm watching anime at all, so I would love to see more of these types of episodes. As for Ghibli films, I rank them approximately as follows (from favorite to less-favorite) Spirited Away Porco Rosso Howl's Moving Castle Princess Mononoke Castle in the Sky My Neighbor Totoro Grave of the Fireflies (this is hard to rank because it's the saddest film I've ever seen, kind of hard to be "favorite" but damn is it good) Ponyo Kiki's Delivery Service Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind

I'm with Brad. Princess Mononoke is my absolute favorite Miyazaki film. Nausicaa and Spirited Away would round out my Top 3

Karl Williams

So glad you have decided to do Ghibli films. Aside from DBZ, Miyazaki films are the only anime I watch. Hope for more in future episodes.

David Sobiegraj

Great movie and great discussion :) Please also cover "Nausicaä", the film Miyazaki made before Castle in the Sky, and "Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water", a series from Anno that he did before NGE and after working together with Miyazaki on Nausicaä. In fact The Secret of Blue Water and Castle in the Sky are based on the same concept, just went into different directions during production. All of them are old anime classics and great mysterious adventures that inspired alot of other movies and games. In fact Alex Preston who made Hyper Light Drifter said that Nausicaä was his strongest inspiration and I feel like also The Secret of Bluer Water shines through in this game. If you liked that mysterious and ruined world you should definitely check out these animes.

Woo! Super cool you guys did this, given I just saw the film in theaters a couple of weekends ago.

Mikehook1