Feb 20, 2018
This is a weird one. Ghibli movies kind of sort of don’t have so much of a specific time frame. There are certain contextual clues, but only enough to hold the story together. Here, fascism in Italy has taken over and our ritual Red Pig resists. Plus, the planes on display are very period-specific. Luckily, there’s still that sense of wonder and delight to be found in a good Ghibli film so who really cares? The bad guys are just people we really want to see look bad this time. So far as the American voice cast goes, I’m not sure I buy Batman beating the Dread Pirate Roberts but I guess it’s as Miyazaki wishes.