It’s time to put forth more than just sporadic love for the animated wonders done over at Studio Ghibli but before taking on Laputa – Castle In The Sky in episode 2, Stoo and Ken do a brief history on the studio and talk of their first experiences with both anime in general but in particular with Ghibli. Follow us and Totoro above throughout this new Japan On Fire-series!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Plot: When a young woman, Sophie is turned into a elderly woman by ‘The Witch of the Waste’, she decides to travel to the Wasteland to find the Witch. One her journey she befriends a rather odd Scarecrow nicknamed ‘Turnip head’, she convinces the scarecrow to find her a place to stay, expecting a small bed and breakfast she is surprised to be see a gigantic moving castle heading towards her. She manages to climb into the castle from the back entrance, still being followed by Turnip head.
When entering the castle she meets a fire demon Calcifur, his job is to move the castle for the illustrious wizard Howl. Sophie had already met Howl before; he had saved her from a couple of rowdy soldiers.
Howl has Calcifur under a contract, Calcifur and Sophie make a deal if Sophie can break his contract between him and Howl and he will help Sophie break the curse from the Witch of the Waste. Read More
Plot: Two young girls, Satsuke and her younger sister Mei move from the busy cities to the country side with their father to be closer to their mother, who is in hospital. A couple days after moving, Mei goes off exploring into the neighboring forest after noticing two pecular strange looking animals. The animals end up leading her deep into the forest, she ends falling into the den of a giant woodland creature known as a Totoro.
The Totoro’s (which are Forest Spirits and big fuzzy ones at that) begin to show up at random times for their new friends and manages to help their family through some tough periods. Read More
Plot: Renowned master thief Wolf and his partner Jigen have just escaped from the biggest heists of their lives, robbing a casino and taking billions of dollars with them. Wolf is realizes that all the money they’ve stolen is actually counterfeit, really good counterfeit. As a great theif he feels it’s his job to go out and find out where these forged notes are coming from. On his travels he saves a young woman called Clarice, although after Wolf some how manages to knock himself out, he awakes to realize the girl has been taken away on a ship.
He and his group of misfits (Ishikawa; a samurai warrior and Jigen; cigarette smoking sniper) discover the great Castle of Cagliostro and find out that Clarice is being held their, Wolf makes it’s his own personal mission to rescue this damsel in distress. But he soon learns that it’s a lot harder than it sounds. Read More
The Podcast On Fire Network aims to provide a large, continually expanding overview of Asian cinema. On the flagshow Podcast On Fire, the big guns out of Hong Kong cinema gets a spotlight through discussion and review while the remainder of the network shows gives you insight into Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese cinema and the history of adult oriented Hong Kong cinema!