
Miyazaki's Beautiful Anti-War Dreams - shadowmoses
https://medium.com/dan-sanchez/miyazaki-s-beautiful-antiwar-dreams-44951be1be11
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grownseed
It makes me deeply happy to see this here. Miyazaki's mind is truly unique
(and by extension most Ghibli films too), nothing else quite compares (and as
the author points out, certainly not Disney & co. despite being Ghibli's
distributors in the West). I've introduced many people to Ghibli, a lot of
whom would have never even considered watching an animated film (even less so
a foreign one), and most came away truly touched.

Miyazaki is anti-war, but he's also extremely pro-ecology as is obvious in
most of his films (Nausicaa is an obvious one, but perhaps more obvious would
be Pom Poko or Totoro). Broadly speaking, he advocates balance in all its
forms. A lot of his main protagonists are strong female characters, and not
the "overly girly unicorn princess with magical powers" kind. Violence, like
greed, is a disease as opposed to an end (in fact those two concepts are often
expressed together in his films, e.g. Spirited Away).

But maybe the best accomplishment in most, if not all, of Miyazaki's work, is
his ability to capture the interest and the imagination of the viewers without
resorting to cheesy gimmicks, gratuitous violence or sexual innuendos, which
seem to be the go-to for a lot of cinema (animation and otherwise, Western and
Eastern).

~~~
shadowmoses
In his own words, “You must see with eyes unclouded by hate. See the good in
that which is evil, and the evil in that which is good. Pledge yourself to
neither side, but vow instead to preserve the balance that exists between the
two.”

~~~
JoshTriplett
> You must see with eyes unclouded by hate. See the good in that which is
> evil, and the evil in that which is good. Pledge yourself to neither side,
> but vow instead to preserve the balance that exists between the two.

As a statement, it sounds poetic at first, and the first two sentences are
absolutely perfect; however, there's something very wrong about the notion of
"preserving the balance", and I've seen that notion show up elsewhere as well.
Evil should not persist out of any sense of balance, and nothing goes horribly
wrong with the world if evil ceases altogether.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Evil should not persist out of any sense of balance

I don't think the quote supports the idea of evil persisting out of balance,
but rather that to advance the greater good one must balance the need to
oppose the notionally evil things (which nonetheless contain good) with the
need to oppose the evil contained in things which are notionally good.

Its the only interpretation I can see which makes sense in the context of the
sentences that the one on balance follows. What is preserved is not the
balance _in the state of the world_ between the sides (or between good and
evil), but the balance you recognize between the good and evil in each side, a
balance that is lost when you commit to one as "good" and ignore the evil it
contains, and the good contained in the other.

~~~
JoshTriplett
> I don't think the quote supports the idea of evil persisting out of balance,
> but rather that to advance the greater good one must balance the need to
> oppose the notionally evil things (which nonetheless contain good) with the
> need to oppose the evil contained in things which are notionally good.

That much is absolutely true; conflicts and war are evils in themselves, even
when some would consider them "necessary".

~~~
happyscrappy
If you have the luxury of considering war unnecessary then someone else is
likely carrying your water.

~~~
JoshTriplett
I didn't say it was; sometimes it might be the lesser evil. Still evil,
though.

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fitzwatermellow
Might be in the minority, but I strongly disagree with the assessment that
Miyazaki-san's final film "The Wind Rises" was not amongst his greatest. I re-
view it every few months for inspiration and find it holds up quite powerfully
with each repetition. Japanese anime does Italian neo-realism in epic scale.
The engineer as the manifestor of dreams. War as a terrible catalyst of
progress. Surreally creepy voice acting by Werner Herzog as the mysterious
Castorp in an homage to Thomas Mann. What's not to love?

For more on the controversy here's a link to the Chicago Reader review that
sums up why some perceived it as being sympathetic to fascism:

[http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/the-wind-rises-hayao-
mi...](http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/the-wind-rises-hayao-miyazaki-
jiro-horikoshi/Content?oid=12535079)

~~~
Sven7
Fully agree. Not to mention the fantastic artwork.

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netcan
Two points:

One is that I'm tired of both the congratulatory and the flagellative uses of
"Western." Feminism is no more a western tradition than it is an Arab, Chinese
or Congolese one. It's a modern cultural movement. Similarly, simple good vs
evil plot settings are not western. They exist everywhere. They're often from
propaganda, naturally occurring hero worship, morality tales and depictions of
a culture's own history. GRRM (mentioned here) is as western as Tolkien and is
definitely a modern example western literature.

The complicated moral depictions in Game of Thrones are not new, but they are
definitely strong in the current zetgeist. It comes and goes and has often
reached the point of cliche. Hercules (and his analogues like Samson and
Cuchulainn) are often depicted with character flaws, often involving women and
madness in some way. We've been through a period when it was out of fashion. I
think hollywood film tradition is very largely to blame, their perfect hero
classics. The awesome comedic writer like Adams, Pratchet, Joseph Heller or
even Franz Kafka earlier on mock this constantly. Humour is great for this
kind of thing, satirising the current literary cliches.

That brings me to my second point. Today's storytelling is taking this stuff
to a whole new level. The complex morality tales and decompacting of group
decision making dynamics that we see in everything today is really awesome, in
my opinion. I think it's great art, or at least to my taste. Playing with
moral perspective and depicting the complexity of people acting in groups is
an awesome thing to explore. There's a ton of depth there and a ton of
artistic flair required to bite into it. In my opinion, it hits the best notes
when you have been wrenched so much that your sheltered sense of morality
breaks down. It still exists, but its grim rather than fiery. Evil gets
demystified, banal and sad. When a bad guy gets a just end you take on the
role of a reluctant but dutiful executioner rather than a hot blooded
cheerleader at the gallows.

Walter White is awesome because he's complex like a real person. His angst
isn't just a flat "he's angsty because X." That's very hard to do. I think the
only way to get that stuff across is the moral grey areas and the "shit
happens" unfolding of a person. Long format TV series give writers time to do
it.

This stuff is really fantastic in modern art. TV shows, books...

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stavrogin
This article rightfully praises the Ghibli movies for their non-Manichean
stories, especially when compared to Disney or Hollywood blockbusters. Yet I'm
surprised it missed an important example: in the first film entirely directed
by Hayao Miyazaki, Nausicäa is far from an angel. In my eyes, she is
Miyazaki's most ambiguous character. _Warning, spoiler ahead_.

When her valley is invaded, the peaceful Nausicäa runs to the room of her ill
and bedridden father. He's dead, surrounded by soldiers. She screams, seizes
her father's sword, and enters a killing rage. Truly, even a young and sweet
girl can feel hate and killing intent, and she may even act accordingly.
Nobody's born an angel nor a demon, but we can all become insensitive or
cruel. Just read Primo Levi or Herman Langbein to see how most people
transform in a few weeks. Anyway, that sequence made me cry.

I'd also like to mention the opening of this movie, inspired from the medieval
"tapisserie de Bayeux" that relates England's invasion in the XIth century.
The ballet of robots along a burning city is incredibly beautiful and moving.
How stunning that Miyazaki starts his first film with the artistic beauty of a
war scene!

~~~
duaneb
That entire movie is probably the most beautiful one I've ever seen.

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hacktavist
This is really an awesome article, thanks for sharing!

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bracewel
The post seems a little confusing, Howl's Moving Castle was in fact written by
Diana Wynne Jones 18 years before the Studio Ghibli adaptation.

~~~
mayoff
There are major differences between the book and the movie.

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shadowmoses
August 6th and 9th 2015 marked the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombs
dropped on Japan in WWII; Thought this was an appropriate time to post this

~~~
smegel
How does portraying a criminal war aggressor as a victim support an anti-war
message?

~~~
rwallace
If the author had portrayed the Imperial Japanese government as an innocent
victim, I would be the first to despise the article. But he didn't. He
mentioned the campaign of mass murder in China, the insane stupidity of the
decision to attack Pearl Harbor and then to fight the war to the bitter end.
In no way does he suggest any of these things are excusable. The people he
portrays as innocent victims are the civilians of every nationality who are
burned to death in bombing raids or starved by blockades - 'economic
sanctions' if you want to use the current euphemism.

And he's right. The economic sanctions against Iraq that condemned hundreds of
thousands of children to starve to death were an atrocity just about exactly
as bad as the rape of Nanking. Just about exactly as inexcusable. We need to
get to the point where we stop looking for excuses for such actions.

~~~
smegel
> Nobody is more familiar with what a curse airplanes can be when deployed for
> evil than the Japanese. Airplanes dropped the canisters that burned their
> cities, the mines that starved their children, and the nukes that instantly
> made vast irradiated graveyards out of Hiroshima and Nagasaki — for the
> first time in history visiting solar-temperature hell upon human
> habitations, and hinting at mankind’s full capacity for suicidal madness.
> But their intimate familiarity with the “cursed dream” of airplanes also
> stems from the Japanese state’s own misuse of the great invention for its
> imperial dreams.

So the bombing of Japan was "evil", Japan's own bombings were just a "misuse"
in pursuit of a "dream". How very neutral.

> The economic sanctions against Iraq that condemned hundreds of thousands of
> children to starve to death were an atrocity just about exactly as bad as
> the rape of Nanking. Just about exactly as inexcusable. We need to get to
> the point where we stop looking for excuses for such actions.

Economic sanctions are an alternative to war. Are you suggesting we should
have bombed Iraq instead at the time? Or just let Saddam do what he pleased?
Ironically, when the USA does nothing (Rwanda, Pol Pot, North Korea,
Srebrenica) they are accused of complicity in inaction, yet when they do
something, they are war criminals. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

~~~
rwallace
> Economic sanctions are an alternative to war.

And frankly one of the reasons I think they should be taken off the table
entirely is because they are far too easy an alternative. At least in war,
some of the victims have their faces broadcast on television. The victims of
economic sanctions are never heard of except as dry statistics.

> Are you suggesting we should have bombed Iraq instead at the time? Or just
> let Saddam do what he pleased?

Saddam had already been stopped from doing what he pleased. He had been
comprehensively kicked out of Kuwait. It should have stopped there.

> Ironically, when the USA does nothing (Rwanda, Pol Pot, North Korea,
> Srebrenica) they are accused of complicity in inaction, yet when they do
> something, they are war criminals. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

This is only a contradiction if the two kinds of accusations come from the
same people.

~~~
pekk
I would much rather be subjected to economic sanctions than bombed, but I
guess I don't speak for everyone. Maybe some people prefer to be bombed.

~~~
rwallace
That's probably because you live in a relatively wealthy country that would
not be harmed so much by economic sanctions. One way to look at it is that
that the economic sanctions against Iraq killed two or three orders of
magnitude more civilians than the bombing campaigns of 1991 and 2003 put
together. Another way to look at it is that if you were starving to death
because of economic sanctions, you would probably change your preference very
quickly.

In any case, I wasn't proposing to spend twelve years bombing Iraq instead of
the economic sanctions. I was proposing that after Saddam had been kicked out
of Kuwait, that should have been the end of the matter.

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delinka
I'm disappointed that what could have been a review of an excellent film
contained so much anti-"US Warmongering." War is terrible. Sanctions have
negative effects. How would this author propose convincing leaders who commit
human rights violations to stop those violations? Asking nicely?

"Thus, the starvation of little Setsuko/Keiko was not 'collateral damage,' but
a premeditated murder. [...] Of course elite war-bringers [...] do not
themselves pay the 'prices' they decide are acceptable."

This author needs to remember that Japan was the war-bringer in WW2. Brought
it right to Pearl Harbor.

~~~
ameza
If the label, "US Warmongering", upsets you so much, please consider joining
anti-war efforts. There's a reason why we have that label. Since WW2, our
military has been active throughout the world to protect our interests from
Latin America to the Middle East and of course, even Europe with the Cold War.
Our current president promised an end to the war in the Middle East but it has
yet to materialize. The Republican Party wants to launch a full-on campaign
against ISIS. That label will remain with us unless we, as citizens, get
involved with our government.

With regards to your point into human rights violations, I'd strongly suggest
you look deeper into the conflict itself as "human right violations" is smoke
and mirrors. If "human right violations" were a reason to start a conflict,
Russia and/or China should have invaded us by now for all the human rights
violations our police force are committing against our citizens, for all human
right violations at Guantanamo Bay, etc.

~~~
happyscrappy
ISIS makes the Nazis seem reasonable but for some people anyone that opposes
the West is good.

~~~
tinco
If you think that you haven't seen/read enough about the Nazis. Not that I
would recommend doing that, just letting you know.

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everyone
MAJOR SPOILERS!!! wtf! no spoiler warning at all. Grave of the fireflies was
one of the few Ghibli films I hadnt got around to seeing yet. Plot is totally
spoiled in the first few sentences. fuck you author!!

~~~
hajile
For what it's worth, that "spoiler" is a known fact less than 2 minutes into
the film. As with all Ghibli films, the greatness is in the watching.

~~~
JoshTriplett
I agree; some stories are more damaged by spoilers than others. If the primary
appeal of a story is a shocking surprise, the spoiler takes much of the fun
out of it. But some stories aren't particularly hurt even if you know the
details.

However, in this case, the spoiler (which I read long ago) told me that it's a
film I want to skip; I don't enjoy stories with bad endings, no matter what
message they're trying to convey or point they're trying to make. There's too
much of that in reality already to seek it out in fiction.

------
ekianjo
This is a terrible article.

> LeMay also oversaw and championed the enforcement of the total blockade of
> Japan by filling the waters around its port cities with aerial-dropped
> mines, which, for example, caused shipping through Kobe to plummet by 85%.
> This campaign was dubbed, with a refreshing lack of hypocrisy, “Operation
> Starvation.” Thus, the starvation of little Setsuko/Keiko was not
> “collateral damage,” but a premeditated murder.

Newsflash: people kill other people in wars. Including civilians. Wow, I would
have never imagined. And yes, you try to kill as many people as you can,
because that's how wars stop, when the losses are big enough that you consider
capitulation. Japan's military indoctrination gave the US not much choice
anyway, since they were ready to fight till the last man.

> LeMay was instrumental in the US shift from high-altitude bombing with
> general purpose explosives to the low-altitude incendiary bombing of
> Japanese cities that resulted in hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths
> and the famine-inducing ruination of the economy. He later became a tireless
> advocate for bombing Vietnam, as he put it, “back to the Stone Age,” and for
> bombing the whole world back to the Ice Age by launching a nuclear first
> strike against the Soviet Union.

That's a complete misunderstanding of the thinking of LeMay. There are many
documentaries/books about him, and you can read "Command and Control" if you
want to get a good view of LeMay and why he acted like that during that
period. Whether you liked him or not, he was a rational person. His idea of
nuking the Soviets first came from the fact that for some time, the US had
clear superior nuclear power vs the Soviets, and that one should not wait
until the Soviets develop enough bombs to be able to destroy the US if they
decide to strike first. If the Soviets had decided to strike first, it would
have destroyed the US chain of command and left nothing for retaliation - that
is why LeMay started the SAC program to have bombers constantly in the skies
with nuclear weapons, "just in case". That program lasted until after the fall
of the Soviet Union. And bombing the Soviets first when the US had a clear
advantage (in the early 50s basically) would not have resulted in the whole
world being destroyed, most likely only the Soviet Union would have paid a
hefty price while the losses in Europe/US would have been less.

Seriously, don't write about History if you know nothing about it.

~~~
losvedir
> _And bombing the Soviets first when the US had a clear advantage (in the
> early 50s basically) would not have resulted in the whole world being
> destroyed, most likely only the Soviet Union would have paid a hefty price
> while the losses in Europe /US would have been less._

And this is a better outcome than what _actually_ happened how...?

~~~
ekianjo
Not saying this is better or worse. Just explaining the way he was thinking -
and noting that we were on the brink of nuclear war in two times in the 60s
and the 80s, with actual total annihilation being very close - if it had
happened you would not be there to pass that judgment in the first place, and
LeMay may have been proven right.

Most observers agree that it was "mere luck" that we did not annihilate each
other at those precise time points.

