Where you've been is good and gone

All you keep is the getting there

-Townes Van Zandt, “To Live Is To Fly”

 Miyazaki and his animation studio Ghibli make the best children’s movies precisely because they aren’t written like the standard children’s movies in theaters.

Two of their best movies for kids, Spirited Away and My Neighbor Totoro, supply audiences with everything needed to keep kids and adults entertained. There are bright colors, magical worlds, beautiful animation, brave heroes (usually girls), and even a strong moral to each story.

The trick is how Miyazaki’s films don’t beat viewers over the head with their messages; they just happen. The same goes for the magic creatures and locations. Very little is spelled out to the viewer; things just happen according to the movie’s internal logic and viewers are often in the same situation as the child heroine in accepting what’s on screen and moving forward.

What Miyazaki’s girls in Spirited Away and My Neighbor Totoro have trouble accepting are far more real situations. Fantasy serves as an escape for them when moving to a new town or visiting a parent who must stay at a hospital for a long time. In the case of the fantasy and the reality, the kids must find their inner strength alone. In Spirited Away, Chihiro’s parents are captured in a somewhat literal ghost town and she takes refuge as an employee in a resort for passing spirits. In My Neighbor Totoro, Satsuki and Mei move into a new house with their father while their mother rests with a serious illness. They find enchanted creatures in the forest outside their house, and spend much of the story just getting along.

If these premises sound so simple, it’s because explaining the underlying messages would take forever. For example, a spirit appears at Chihiro’s workplace and tosses endless piles of gold to everyone, causing a money-grubbing frenzy. Chihiro refuses the free money, and the spirit goes berserk. At no point is the audience outright told, “here is why that spirit was bad.” The scene is plenty entertaining on its own, but holds deeper meaning for those who think about it. Scenes like that are a refreshing departure from the usual kid-movie formula of “accept a wise old mentor, go to fantasy school, follow their rules and defeat a bad guy at the end who wanted to kill everyone.”

The graphic novel versions of Spirited Away and My Neighbor Totoro are a bit of a cheat: they’re still shots of the movies laid out like comics. Regardless, they look and read extremely well, and are as appropriate for all ages as the movies. If you or your kids are in need of a new favorite story, check out these Miyazaki classics.