Studio Ghibli's Adventures

What’s up people! This week is going to be one of those random ones that has nothing to do with any particular album or artist. Today I wanted to talk about soundtracks in movies and how powerful a sound can be in creating a moment in films. For this post, I’m gonna focus particularly on animation since I decided to watch a bunch of Studio Ghibli movies. (By the way, for the love of god do NOT watch Grave of the Fireflies unless you want an excuse to buy a shit ton of tissues.) I decided to watch the studio’s movies in order of release date because I wanted to see how the animation style changes and evolves over time. So, the first movie I watched was A Castle in the Sky. And my oh my is that a fun movie. It literally felt like a video game except you’re watching one huge cinematic. The plot was so fun and interesting having it be about a kid who thinks there’s a castle floating in the sky, but nobody believes him until he randomly meets the princess of that sky castle and they both go on a journey to get there. As they try getting there, they run into military forces, thieves, and other competitors as they race to get to the castle and obtain the treasure it holds for them. The plot was very colorful, and the animation did a great job at matching that brightness. It was while watching this that the idea of this movie being once a single idea came into my head and blew my mind. I can’t believe that this great adventure tale was at one point just a random idea that got time to be brought into the real world. And of course, as I followed that train of thought, I ended up being more amazed as I focused in on the soundtrack that helps bring the fictional world of A Castle in the Sky to life.

And yeah, the soundtrack did a great job at carrying the tale in this movie. The sounds you hear from the orchestra is so complimentary to the emotions being shown on screen. Princess having a existential crisis on whether or not she wants to be princess? Soft, melodic music that ramps up as she gets more frustrated with herself. Thieves chasing after the princess? Have crazy fanfare of string and flute instruments dancing with each other as the pace just keeps going faster and faster until BAM! THE PRINCESS MAKES IT OUT AND LIVES LETS GOO!! But wait, we end up getting to the castle and it’s not what we take it to be? Play saddening music but not too sad because we want the audience to know that it was never about the end destination, the true reward of this story was the journey between the princess and the boy she friends. WHAT A VIBE! But that’s not it… let’s end the credits with... you guessed it. A classic Japanese song with a wonderful voice from Azumi Inoue with the man behind it all... Joe Hisiashi. I know this is a random topic, but I’ve always wanted to talk about how the sounds of music can be implemented in other forms of media. For movies, music has the power to make anything feel just that much better as you either wipe a tear from your eyes or have your heart racing for the next scene. The reason I chose to use Studio Ghibli’s movie was because recently, I haven’t felt the magic that I used to in modern movies I go watch. I don’t know if it’s because I’m growing up or I’m just not feeling the movies I’ve been watching, but Studio Ghibli made me feel like a kid all over it and I’m glad I had the experience I had this past weekend. I highly recommend you guys check out their movies if you haven’t already but I’m sure I’m the only dude that hasn’t watched anything from them yet. Hope you guys enjoyed reading this one, have a great week and I’ll see you all soon!