In my last blog post, we talked about Spirited Away and the Prostitution Theory. But Spirited Away isn’t the only movie that has a widely debated fan theory. A great example of another is My Neighbor Totoro and the Sayama incident.

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What is the Sayama Incident?

On May 1, 1963, Yoshie Nakata (or Nakata Yoshie for people who put the surname last), a girl who had just turned 16 on that day, was kidnapped. Her family received a ransom note asking for 200,000 yen in exchange for Nakata. Her sister, who loved her dearly, went to the arranged meeting place accompanied by the police. She had brought fake money, but before the exchange, the kidnapper felt that something was amiss and escaped. Just 3 days later, on May 4, Nakata was found dead in the alley of a farm. She was determined to have been raped and murdered. Devastated, her sister went insane, often seeing apparitions, and committed suicide.

On May 23, a man named Kazuo Ishikawa (or Ishikawa Kazuo for surname last), was arrested for a completely different crime. However, after being interrogated for 28 days on end, he confessed to the rape and murder of Nakata. Many people believed the perpetrator had been caught, but the courts had overlooked much of the evidence leading to his innocence due to the fact that he was a Burakumin, a group of impoverished people who faced a lot of social discrimination. Ever since he has been released from jail, Ishikawa has been fighting for his innocence.

What was the evidence that led to his conviction? It is said that Ishikawa’s handwriting and the writing on the ransom note were relatively similar. There was also one testimony that Ishikawa had asked about the whereabouts of the house on the night the ransom note was delivered. Nakata’s older sister and a polieman also testified that they heard the voice of the kidnapper and that it matched Ishikawa’s voice. Lastly, Ishikawa gave an alibi that was proven to be false during his trial.

However, this evidence may seem insignificant when you take other factors into account. For example, Ishikawa’s handwriting was said to have matched the ransom note because of a few strange characters that he wrote differently than most other people. However, because of his impoverished situation, he never really learned to write and wasn’t fully literate. In fact, he never even finished elementary school. Additionally, a large part of his conviction was based on the fact that the police found a pen that belonged to Nakata in Ishikawa’s house. However, they only found this pen the third time they investigated his house, having missed it the first two times despite the fact that each investigation lasted two hours. The pen was said to have been placed on the top of his door frame. The investigators said that they hadn’t seen the bright pink pen because the frame was too high up, although the frame was said to only be about six feet high. But that’s not even the worst of it. The confession that Ishikawa made did not match the method of Nakata’s murder at all. He said that he strangled her with his right hand, but this would have made clear bruise marks on her neck which weren’t there. Instead, it is shown that she was strangled by a cloth. Adding onto that, he said he strangled her because she began to scream. However, just 20 meters away, a man who was working near the scene of the crime reported to have heard faint sounds from a festival 500 meters away, but didn’t hear any screams at all. Lastly, we can’t ignore the fact that Ishikawa was held for almost a full month before he confessed, which many people believe led to a forced and pressured confession.

I’ll leave you to decide whether or not Ishikawa was wrongly convicted, but for now, let’s talk about My Neighbor Totoro.

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What is My Neighbor Totoro all About?

The movie follows the story of two young sisters, Mei and Satsuki. In the beginning of the movie, they are shown moving into a new house. As the story progresses, Mei goes missing and a sandal her size is found in a nearby river. Police determine that she has drowned, but Satsuki, devastated, refuses to believe this and runs off to find her little sister. After searching for a while, Mei is found with a spirit named Totoro. At the end of the movie, the two sisters visit their mother at a hospital before returning home.

 

If you’d like more information on the movie, I would strongly encourage that you watch it yourself as I am only covering the main points that I would like to address.

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Why is Totoro Considered the God of Death?

There are a couple of different pieces of evidence that point to the theory that Miyazaki created this film to support Ishikawa in his fight for freedom. It is said that Miyazaki likes to address political problems in his films, whether or not this is really true. But that hasn’t stopped fans from searching through his movies to find their own theories on what his movies mean.

One of these pieces of evidence is the two sisters’ names. The older sister is named Satsuki, and the younger one is named Mei. Satsuki, in Japanese, means May, and Mei is pronounced “May”. Both of these names are said to point to the month during which Ishikawa was convicted and the Sayama incident took place.

Additionally, as stated above, in the beginning of the movie, Mei and Satsuki are moving into a new house. Scattered throughout the house are soot sprites. In Japanese lore, it is said that one will only see soot sprites when they are about to die. Their grandmother, who was also there moving into the house, couldn’t see the soot sprites at all, despite the fact that they are shown to be scattered everywhere throughout the house.

Furthermore, when they are moving into the house, it is stated that they are moving into a town called Sayama Hills. This is furthered by the label on a box behind Mei and Satsuki’s grandmother that says “Sayama Tea”.

 

When Mei runs away, it is believed that she actually drowned, but her spirit ran into the forest and found Totoro the God of Death. Later, when Satsuki runs after Mei, she is believed to have entered “the gateway of death” found in the forest to find Totoro. Although the setting may not seem to have much of an effect, it is important to state that the rape and murder of Nakata also happened in a forest. Adding onto this, when Satsuki runs through the forest, she again sees the soot sprites scurrying along the floor of the path.

Later, Satsuki and Mei are escorted by a cat bus that brings them to their mother. It is said that children in the movie are able to see magical things like this. However, only Mei and Satsuki can see them, despite the fact that other children were around. Additionally, the older sister of Nakata was said to have seen apparitions of strange rabbit-like and cat-like creatures. Lastly, the one of the stops of the Cat Bus is “Grave Road”.

When Satsuki and Mei go to meet their mother, the calendar in the mother’s room is actually set to a date much earlier than the date that she is said to have died on. Although this could be attributed to her just not updating her calendar, fans have said that this actually meant that the Cat Bus took them back in time to say goodbye to their mother before they went to meet her in heaven (or hell).

Lastly, at the end of the movie, Satsuki and Mei completely lose their shadows. This is theorized to be because light doesn’t bounce off of spirits and goes right through them instead. They are shown to be closely and happily interacting with Totoro. However, this is seen through the eyes of their father, who is believed to be imagining that they are happy in heaven.

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So what do you think? Although there was no mention of Ishikawa, do you think that Miyazaki made this movie to address the Sayama incident?

Thank you so much for reading these blog posts! I am still not sure whether or not I will continue posting, but I’m still glad I got to share this information with you.

In my first post, I mentioned that Spirited Away was the top grossing Japanese animated film and even won an Oscar in 2003. It is a fan favorite and is usually one of the only Studio Ghibli movies people have actually heard of. But before we go into the theory behind the movie, let me tell you a little bit about what it’s about. If you’ve already watched the movie or would like to watch it on your own free time, feel free to skip down to the section titled “The Prostitution Theory”.

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What is Spirited Away About?

The movie follows the story of a young girl named Chihiro. In the beginning of the movie, it is revealed that she and her family are moving to a different town and that Chihiro is depressed because she must leave all of her friends. However, the family gets lost and comes across a tunnel in the forest. They decide to enter the tunnel and come across an abandoned amusement park. During their exploration, Chihiro and her parents come across empty stores with food set out. Having driven a long way, Chihiro’s parents decide to treat themselves to some food and agree that they will pay the store owners back later. Chihiro, who does not want to get into trouble, runs off. However, as the sun sets, Chihiro sees a ship approaching a dock nearby and watches as spirits get off of the cruise ship. Terrified, she runs back to her parents as the amusement park and stores come to life from the spirits appearing everywhere, only to find that her parents have been cursed and are turned into pigs for their theft. Again, she runs away.

As she is running, a humanoid spirit named Haku finds her and takes her under his wing. He escorts her back to his workplace, a bath house, to ask his boss, Yubaba, if she will offer her a job. On their way there, he tells her that if she doesn’t eat something from the spirit world, she will disappear. But he also tells her that if she breathes the spirits will become aware of her presence and will want to eat her.

At the bath house, Chihiro is escorted to Yubaba who tells her that if she wants to go home, she must work in the spirit world until she has earned her freedom. Yubaba forces Chihiro to sign a contract that changes Chihiro’s name to Sen as a way to symbolize possession and loss of freedom. During her time at the bath house, Chihiro meets some benevolent spirits who help her get accustomed to her job, but she also encounters some spirits who are not as interested in helping her.

One spirit in particular, called No Face, becomes attached to Chihiro when she lets him in from the rain and spends his time trying to win her affection. He offers her money and tries to help her out whenever she needs. However, his act of conjuring gold, which turns out to be fake, causes him to gain major attention and the other workers at the bath house shower him with food and care. As a result, No Face develops a never ending hunger and intense rage. Because of this, he tries to eat everyone in the bath house. When Chihiro tries to calm him down by giving him a piece of an herbal ball, but this makes him throw up everything he’s eaten and causes him to hate Chihiro.

As a result, Chihiro leaves to try to find a way to gain her freedom. When she leaves, she meets up with Yubaba’s twin sister. The two of them team up with Haku, the spirit from before who has been taking care of her, and work to gain Chihiro’s freedom by essentially kidnapping Yubaba’s beloved son. Although this sounds harsh, in the end, he decides he wants to leave anyways to live with her twin sister. Distraught, Yubaba finally allows Chihiro to leave in exchange for her son.

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The Prostitution Theory

It is said that Miyazaki likes to address political problems and current events in his films. The one that is linked to Spirited Away is the major issue of child prostitution. Throughout the movie, there are also several instances that may serve as proof for this theory, so let’s go through them.

Firstly, when the bath house is revealed, there a sign above the entrance with the Japanese symbol for the word “yu”, which means hot water. Although this may seem fitting seeing as it is a bath house, it is important to address the fact that in the Japanese Edo era, men often went to bath houses to meet with women named “yuna”, or “hot water woman.” However, these women often weren’t just attendants, but also prostitutes. “Yuna” is also the name of the “race” of the female spirits who work in the bath house. Additionally, the name of the woman who runs the bath house, Yubaba, means “hot water old woman”.

Next, when Chihiro goes to sign the contract with Yubaba, she is forced to change her name to Sen. This is a parallel to the prostitution industry in which many women are forced to change their name to make sure that no one finds them.

Finally, let’s address the real issue at hand: prostitution. The first instance in which this theory is addressed is when Chihiro meets No Face. It is said that No Face is meant to represent a pedophile who consistently wants to buy Chihiro, who is underage. As an attempt to buy her virginity, he offers her money and even steals bath cards for her so that she can do her job. However, as she continuously refuses to accept him, he ends up chasing after her himself, but she gets away.

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But if you think this theory is too far-fetched, I would really encourage you to watch the movie for yourself. Although I explained the basic plotline of the movie, I did leave out a lot of details. This theory is something that I have always been fascinated about. In my next blog post, I would like to go into another theory for a different, but still extremely popular, Miyazaki movie.

 

Last week, we talked about the Pixar Theory as a precursor for addressing the Miyazaki Theory. But now, it’s finally time to delve into the Miyazaki Theory. Before we start, I would like to ask you to keep the Pixar Theory in mind.

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The Beginning: Porco Rosso

 

Porco Rosso, set in the time period before World War II, introduces the scene by showing the relationship among spirits, animals, and humans. The film features a man named Marco Pagot who fought in the Italian air force in World War I. It is said that he was supposed to marry an Austrian woman named Gina, but once the World War started, he couldn’t bring himself to betray his country. However, when he was at war, the atrocious events that happened made him question his decision and his inner turmoil caused him to become cursed with a pig’s face. Because of this, he changed his name to Porco Rosso, which means the Crimson Pig.

 

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Another World War: The Wind Rises

The Wind Rises features the designers of the Mitsubishi A6M Zero Fighter during World War II. Although the events that happen in this movie don’t really contribut

e much to the Miyazaki timeline, it does reinforce the idea of spirits and humans interacting with each other. This is due to the scene in which two of the main characters, Jiro and Caproni, share a dream together, which would be classified as a supernatural event.

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Enter the Spirits: Spirited Away

 

Spirited Away was the first movie in which humans and spirits freely and openly interacted with each other. It features a girl named Chihiro who winds up getting lost in the spirit world. During her time there, she must work in a bath house to gain her freedom. She meets many spirits during her time there and their interactions exemplify the tension between humans and spirits. This conflict isn’t explained in the previous movies, but it is clear that the relationship between the two are pretty bad. In fact, when Chihiro first wanders into the spirit world, she is immediately taken by someone who was once in the same position as her, but had his memories erased. This boy, Haku, immediately tells her that her presence must not be noticed or else the spirits would try to eat her.

 

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Friendly Spirits: My Neighbor Totoro

 

My Neighbor Totoro tells the story of two sisters who interact with friendly spirits who live in the forest. One of these spirits, Totoro, provides refuge for the younger sister, Mei, when she gets lost. Another spirit, the Cat Bus, brings the two sisters two their mother who is being hospitalized. The bond that the two create with the spirits is so strong that they eventually become inseparable.

 

 

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The Apocalypse: Ponyo

Ponyo is about a man who is so convinced that his daughter has been kidnapped that he sends massive waves of destruction throughout the world. This gargantuan flood destroys thousands of cities, but it is said that it didn’t cause enough damage to eradicate life on earth. Instead, several sections of the Earth are completely wiped out and are forced to start civilization from the beginning again, particularly in areas near bodies of water. These events mark a turn in the history of the Ghibli timeline.

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A New Beginning: Princess Mononoke

Princess Mononoke is said to have taken place on a small island that was completely devastated by the flood from Ponyo’s father. The people who survived were forced to build up civilization from scratch again. However, they wanted to tear down the forests in order to further their development. This created tension between the humans, the animals, and the forest spirits, which later led to a war.

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The Redevelopment of Civilization: Castle in the Sky

Castle in the Sky features floating castles and cities which were said to have been developed after the flood destroyed everything. The people who survived decided it wouldn’t be efficient to stay on the ground where all of their resources were depleted, but instead thought it would be better to build sustainable, flying chunks of land that they would be able to restart on. All of this wouldn’t have been possible without the technology that these people would have had access to by means of other cities that were not destroyed or by the advanced aircrafts that were also left relatively intact, unlike in Princess Mononoke in which they were completely isolated on a small island.

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So What’s Next?

Unfortunately, unlike the Pixar Theory, the Miyazaki Theory will likely not have any more movies added onto it. This is due to the fact that Hayao Miyazaki retired a couple of years ago and would also not be able to confirm nor deny the validity of this theory. But that doesn’t stop the fans from speculating.

In my next blog post, I would like to finally delve into one of the top grossing movies in Japan, Spirited Away, and its own conspiracy theory.

 

Although in my last blog post, I said I was going to go into theories about the Miyazaki movies, I would first like to take a detour and explain the Pixar Theory. Seeing as many of the people reading this blog would likely not have watched any of the Ghibli movies, I want to take this time to explain a similar theory that involves more popular American movies that will hopefully help you understand the Miyazaki movies.

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So, what is the Pixar Theory?

In short, the Pixar Theory is a fan theory that all Pixar movies are from the same timeline. Although this claim hasn’t been confirmed by Pixar, fans have found a substantial amount of evidence that could be used to support their ideas. The Pixar Theory basically states that the timeline that these movies are in illustrate the changing relations between three basic races: humans, animals, and robots.

 

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The Beginning: Brave

At the start of this epic timeline is the movie Brave. This movie was released in 2012, but the events in the movie are estimated to have taken place in the fourteenth or fifteenth century. If you haven’t seen it, the movie focuses on the life of the Scottish princess, Merida. After getting frustrated with her mother, Merida runs off and finds an old, bear-obsessed witch who instills magic in wood. This witch frequently uses doors to teleport places and transform her surroundings. Merida convinces the witch to help her change her mother’s mind, but the witch ends up turning her mother into a bear. There was one other instance in which the witch turned someone into a bear but they were never able to turn back. Despite this, at the end of the movie, Merida and her mother make amends and her mother turns back into a human.

This movie shows the beginnings of the relations between humans, animals, and magic.

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Evolution of Mankind: The Incredibles

The Incredibles is the second movie on the Pixar timeline. It is said to have taken place from the 1950s to the 1960s and features a family of five that has incredible super powers, but they aren’t the only ones. They use their powers to fight against evil, and in particular, against Syndrome who creates robots who are trained to seek out and destroy anyone with superpowers. It is theorized that between the time that went unexplained between Brave and The Incredibles, humans were rapidly evolving and developing their magic until they had superpowers. However, because of Syndromes machines, the numbers of people with these special genetic mutations were decreasing rapidly and, in essence, mankind was devolving. At the end of the movie, although Syndrome is defeated, his killer robot, the Omindroid, was lost, but still functioning.

Enter the robots.

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Evolution of Robots: Toy Story

Toy Story, Toy Story 2, and Toy Story 3 take their places here in the timeline, at around 1997-2010. In the first Toy Story movie, the ideas that toys were able to feed off of human emotion was introduced. The Pixar Theory suggests that the Omnidroid, which was considered so intelligent that it turned against its own maker, spent its time in the wilderness creating more robots and essentially allowing them to evolve. As the robots grew more and more advanced, they created toys that were able to understand human emotion, but could only live if they brought joy to children. However, as humans began to take their toys for granted, the toys became independent and fed off their own resentment for humans (as was seen in Lotso the bear and Jessie who hated her owner for abandoning her).

Robots begin to rebel.

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Evolution of Animals: Finding Nemo and Ratatouille

While humans and robots have been evolving, animals have also been quickly making progress. In Finding Nemo, the animals show incredible communicative skills, with Dory being able to talk to whales. Additionally, Nemo’s dad and Dory were able to travel across the ocean alone. They showed unbelievable navigational and survival skills that wouldn’t have been found in more primitive species of these fish. Additionally, it is found out that humans have been experimenting on animals for a long time. It is said that Dory was experimented on, which is why she is so forgetful. To make matters worse, humans had been polluting their home for years, adding growing resentment towards the humans.

The mouse in Ratatouille also displays incredibly human traits, including the ability to cook better than professional chefs. His vast intelligence shows just how much evolution really affected the animals. However, not all animals were affected by the supermutations that the fish in Finding Nemo and Remy were able to attain. Lastly, the rat clans featured in Ratatouille, like the other animals, show intense hatred and fear of humans.

So when does the rebellion start?

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The Introduction of By ‘N’ Large: Up

In the beginning of the movie Up, Carl is forced out of his house by a corporation called By ‘N’ Large. Keep this name in mind; it will come up a lot later. The main point that you need to know about this movie, however, is that Carl meets a dog named Dug that can communicate with him through the help of a translator created by Charles Muntz. During his adventure, Carl finds that animals can effectively communicate with each other, and with the help of technology, they can even communicate with humans. Through their interactions, Carl discovers the resentment that animals harbor towards humans because of the mass pollution they caused. It is also discovered that Muntz raised an army of dogs that would later rebel against humans.

Who do you think won that confrontation?

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The Disappearance of Mankind: Cars

If you said that animals won the confrontation, you would almost be correct. Fed up with being underestimated, experimented on, and forced out of their homes, the animals rebelled against and fought back against the humans. The animals would have eradicated the humans out of sheer hatred, but the machines that had kept in hiding fought alongside the humans and held the animals back. However, the effects of the humans’ pollution was so devastating that the Earth had become almost entirely desolate, as seen in the first Cars movie. The humans that survived had to be sent to a separate planet called Axiom in order to keep them alive and the machines, or the cars, were left on Earth to populate and manage it.

Now, here’s the real kicker: the leading oil company at the time that contributed to the pollution of the Earth was called Allinol. If that name sounds familiar, well, you’d be right. Allinol, better known to fans as “all in all”, is owned by By ‘N’ Large. It is theorized that a machine that became extremely intelligent became the head of BnL and wanted to pollute the Earth to destruction.

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A Reversal: Wall-E

So now that we know what’s going on down on Earth, what’s the deal with Axiom? For those of you who have watched Wall-E, you would know that humans are being treated like gods. The machines, formerly known as the toys who had so loved the humans, became so fearful of losing the humans that they wanted to preserve their species and pay them back for the good memories they had. Putting aside the resentment they developed, the robots took care of the humans in the only way they knew how: providing everything the humans could ever want or need. Obesity rates sky-rocketed as the humans were pampered and put into a constant state of euphoria. The robots wanted to shower the humans with happiness because, well, when they were toys, they would die without it. At the end of the movie, Wall-E is seen planting a seed on Earth that would grow to become the tree that started life on Earth again.

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Repopulation of the Earth: A Bug’s Life

Despite the fact that the Earth became desolate, not every animal species was eradicated. Many bugs actually survived the harsh conditions and continued to evolve. The bugs became more and more human-like, building cities, having families, creating civilizations. The lifespan of the bugs grows beyond belief, even to over 90 years old. The Earth thrives so well that humans begin to inhabit it again, but this doesn’t stop the rapid evolution of animals.

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The End?: Monsters, Inc.

The animals were said to have evolved and mutated into incredibly intelligent monsters that were able to use magic on doors to travel back in time to when the Earth was more populated to gather screams from children. On one of their missions, a little girl named Boo discovers the monsters’ time period and becomes extremely attached to one monster named  Sullivan. Although in the beginning, she says that he is a “kitty”, it is theorized that as she grew older, she realized that Sullivan looked more like a bear than any other earthly animal and spends the rest of her life taking the magic she learned about from the monster world to travel through time periods by means of doors to find her long lost friend, Sullivan. Who else travels through doors and is obsessed with bears? The witch from Brave.

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Conclusion

So now that we’ve come full-circle back to Brave, we’ve finally finished our adventure exploring the Pixar Theory. I know this was such a long post, but I really do hope it was worth the read. In the next blog post, I would like to finally jump right into the Miyazaki Theory and make comparisons to the Pixar Theory.

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Citations

If you want to read more about the Pixar Theory, check out this cool website.

If you don’t want to read all about it, watch this super cool video.

 

 

 

Ever since I was a small child Studio Ghibli films were my favorite movies. To this day, they are still the only movies that can bring me to tears. But what exactly are these movies about and what makes them so special? Those are the questions that I aim to answer in this blog.

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What exactly is Studio Ghibli?

Studio Ghibli, which specializes in animated film, first came into existence on June 15, 1985 after the major success of the Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, which was written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, one of the directors of Studio Ghibli. It is now known as the number one Japanese animation and film studio around the globe and its movies have touched the hearts of millions of young children. Studio Ghibli’s success has even led to the opening of its very own museum in Mitaka, Tokyo. Its films have consistently taken the title of the top grossing films in Japan and one of its most famous films, Spirited Away, has even won an Oscar for the Best Animated Feature in 2003 and is recognized as the only non-English film to do so. The film studio has even worked with Disney and Pixar to release English dubbed versions of their films in America.

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What makes Studio Ghibli so special?

One of the most recognizable features of Studio Ghibli is its art style. Despite the fact that the studio has been producing films for more than 30 years, its art style has remained the same, bringing a sense of nostalgia to both its younger and its older viewers; this is something that even Disney can’t attest to. Additionally, Studio Ghibli prides itself in hand-drawing all of its movies. Although it is time-consuming and difficult to fund, the results are phenomenal and never disappoint their fans.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Moreover, Studio Ghibli films often feature strong female protagonists, a concept that doesn’t even happen with the Disney princesses until 1992 when Aladdin was released. This can be attributed to the fact that Hayao Miyazaki, mentioned above, considered himself a strong feminist and believed that the film industry needed more strong female leads. This is also theorized to be one of the reasons why Miyazaki and the film studio’s other co-founders chose the name “Studio Ghibli”, seeing as “ghibli” is the Italian name for the Mediterranean wind and Miyazaki said he wanted to “blow a new wind through the Japanese anime industry.”

Lastly, Studio Ghibli follows a “no-cut” policy, meaning that it demands that if any of its films are to be released globally, it is not to be cut down or rearranged in any way. This policy came about after the American release of Princess Mononoke. Miramax, an American entertainment company that deals with distribution of foreign films, decided that, in order to make the film more relatable to Amerian viewers, it would be best to edit the film before releasing it. This caused mass disappointment and resulted in Studio Ghibli sending a real katana, or a Japanese samurai sword, to Miramax with a note that said “no cuts” attached to it. Their policy has helped the studio gain a lot of respect around the world.

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So what’s next?

For the future of this blog, I would like to cover multiple theories surrounding the Miyazaki movies and especially focus on some of the most successful Studio Ghibli movies.

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Citations

To read more about Studio Ghibli films, you can check out its Wikipedia page or these sites that I used.

Check out this cool website for some casual opinions and a couple fun facts about the film studio.

Check out this blog for some more information from an anime blogger.