Miyazaki's First: The Castle of Cagliostro There was a reason I picked to write about this movie rather than all the others. Though the animation is not as polished as in his other movies, the storyline and plot have changed from today's similar works of Miyazaki. This movie is especially radiative of a young energy and the score imitates a James Bond movie. A er watching some of his other classics, it is not similar at all and modern Miyazaki movies seem to have lost this energy. Though the animation has drastically improved in his modern movies, I would love to see another part to this beautiful motion picture because the character design of this movie is unique to any of his other films, a nod to the anime series Lupin III. A reason for the animation being sub-par compared to his other features is that the movie was held to a tight 6 month production length. The movie grossed $3.8 million USD, almost doubling the budget of $2.3 million. His other films destroyed this ratio, with Spirited Away grossing over 20x the production budget. Popular Pixar engineer John Lasseter said in an interview that this movie had a "profound impact," on him and he apparently even used this movie to "woo" his wife. According to John, he pulled her aside at a party and showed her clips of the movie to see how she reacted to them. She loved the movie as well and they have been married now for 30 years. Despite this silly story of Lasseter, the plot of this movie is undeniably worked out very well. It is a fun movie and the extreme stunts pulled off by Lupin push the dangerous and funny atmosphere that is created for this beautiful adventure of emotion. I laughed a lot at some of the scenes, as many would do, and they are actually quite clever. Hints of Miyazaki's style glimmer like shining rocks in a cave. Miyazaki, in his mid 30s while production of this movie commenced, bridged the gap with this movie from fast-paced animes of Lupin III to his signature poetic, verse style. The movie ranks 10th out of 11 based on length. It is a very short film compared to epics like Princess Mononoke, standing at a miniscule 1 hours and 41 minutes. Out of his 5 newest movies, their lengths rank 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 5th, and 6th. But what does this matter? His newer movies have lost this density of action and have spread as lyrical works of art, less about entertainment and more about conveying a message to the viewer. So what changed Miyazaki so abruptly from his first feature film? A er this, 5 years later, his second feature Nausicaä and the Valley of the Wind was released. I was so surprised to see this already as I would have guessed it would come later, as it is highly reminiscent of Princess Mononoke. This is the Miyazaki we see in his other movies. Miyazaki's signature on The Castle of Cagliostro is hard to notice, but parts of his animation and plot design are still there, imprinted on the characters like stamps. Though it is different from many of his other works, The Castle of Cagliostro has set itself apart from the rest as an amazing movie and the reason Miyazaki came from television animation to making classics that have an impact today. Sources: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5FSTnQB2iA John Lasseter Interview https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Castle_of_Cagliostro