Good morning 🐣

A year ago I wrote about how animation is not a genre, but a medium, and gushed over one of my absolute favorite movies, “Spirited Away.” (That live stage adaption I mentioned will finally be screening in theaters later this month FYI.) Directed by Hayao Miyazaki, it was the high water mark of a career of highlights. You can see each of his films building up to it, including its direct predecessor, “Princess Mononoke,” another masterpiece.

And now that I’ve written about those two films, I thought we could take that journey together, watching how his ideas, style, and storytelling have evolved. So over the course of the next couple years, let’s occasionally dip into his filmography and get a taste of his reverence for nature and pacifism — not to mention his dedication to making food look even better in animated form than it does in real life.

First up is “Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro.” This was back in the ’70s before he cofounded Studio Ghibli (the “Disney of Japan”). Miyazaki had been working in television since the 1960s, as well as storyboarding and animating for others’ feature films, but “Cagliostro” is the first one he directed himself.

It follows gentleman thief Arsène Lupin III and begins in media res with Lupin and his partner robbing a casino somewhere in Europe, followed by a high-speed car chase along a steep mountain rode. Turns out it’s all counterfeit though, so the two decide to infiltrate the micro-state of Cagliostro, the long-rumored source of these bills. Meanwhile, amidst the beautiful ruins of an abandoned castle, a princess is locked in a tower in a room that looks like a twilit Egyptian desert. (Naturally you can expect these two plots to merge together at some point.) What follows is an action-packed adventure and mystery in the vein of Indiana Jones or “Romancing the Stone.”

It’s also got some especially cool and fun things going on, like hunchbacked shadow ninja assassins with long metallic talons, goofy gadgets à la James Bond or Batman, ’70s-style automatic sliding doors and trapdoors, and an absolutely phenomenal dungeon — “Four hundred years of killing and more killing… may you rest in peace.”

And everything is gorgeously hand drawn and exaggerated. The lines and colors can vary between simple and complex depending on what exactly needs to be emphasized in the moment. Take a look:

(Please forgive me because this is gonna be an image-heavy edition.)

Based on a comic series by the Japanese artist Monkey Punch (yep!) and previously adapted into a TV show by Miyazaki and other collaborators, Lupin III is supposed to be a descendant of the early-1900s character Arsène Lupin that was created by Maurice Leblanc. Monkey Punch’s original version of Lupin III is apparently much more of a hardened criminal, but Miyazaki couldn’t help but add charm and principles to his adaptation. Lupin becomes a romantic. And we can already see Miyazaki’s distaste for greed and corruption showing through, hallmarks of his filmography.

For being the lesser known of his works, “Cagliostro” sure did influence a lot of animators:

• Pixar’s John Lasseter has cited it as a catalyst for his career,

• homages can be found in Disney’s “The Great Mouse Detective” with its Big Ben climax and “Atlantis: The Lost Empire” when the waters recede from the sunken city, and

• a brief shot in “The Simpsons Movie” where Bart rolls down the roof of his house is directly inspired by Lupin sprinting down the roof of the castle.

It’s scenes like that roof sprint that make great use of the camera, employing unique angles to really enhance whatever action and emotion the character is feeling, stretching the architecture out of proportion to make us really feel that derring-do. And the architecture! Don’t even get me started on that.

I mean just look at this castle!

🚨 FOOD ALERT 🚨

Miyazaki’s attention to detail is even prevalent in how he depicts food and eating, something we’ll come back to in each of his films. In this movie we’ve got a mouth-watering feast of pig, lobster, pheasant, and cake, all decorated with daubs and globs of beautifully colored sauces, accompanied by roses and little glasses of glowing liqueurs. At one point in the film a bruised and bandaged Lupin sits up in bed to gorge himself on meat and cheese. There are also lots of rubbed out cigarettes for the food-adjacent among you. It’s definitely a vibe.

Shoot, even the opening credits are lovely:

Until next time! 👋