We were trolling through channels looking for something to watch, and came upon movie night on MTV. This was strange on so many fronts... We NEVER watched MTV, didn't even know that they had a "movie night," and the film they were showing - Princess Mononoke - seemed to have absolutely nothing to do with music. But who cares? We were instantly enchanted with the strange boy on the even stranger red elk racing to protect his village from the demon giant boar. Momentarily we thought, "is this a cartoon?" It was a flash thought, lost immediately because the story was so compelling that it felt completely real regardless of the cartoon nature of the landscape.

We fell in love with the complexity of the characters. There are no simply good or simply bad characters in this film. Is Lady Eboshi a monster for wanting to promote progress, even if it means sacrificing the old ways? Is she a saint for rescuing girls from brothels and lepers from limbo and giving them a safe place to live and prosper? Or is she a cynic willing to take advantage of vulnerable people with few options, and destroy venerable gods and ancient resources, all for personal gain? Miyazaki doesn't decide for us. He simply presents a complex person from different points of view and asks us to decide for ourselves.

How wonderful to find a director who asks his audience to think.

As a kid I loved movies like Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Howl's Moving Castle, Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro, Princess Mononoke, Kiki's Delivery Service, etc. To escape and to have adventures in new places always intrigued me. However my first ever Miyazaki movie was Kiki's Delivery Service. We still even have it on VHS. I remember watching it over and over again I think my mom was afraid we would wear the tape out. My sisters and I loved watching it, we would have camp outs in the basement, lots of blankets and popcorn and re watch it over and over again. I even dressed up like Kiki for Halloween three years in a row. I even brought my own "Gigi" with me. Now as I have "grown up" I am collecting as many of the movies as I can, I love all the "behind the scenes" that all went into making each movie, the allegorys behind several of them. The appreciation and understanding of the complexity of the characters. I now have movie nights with my friends but every once in a while my sisters will get together and watch our favorite childhood movie Kiki's Delivery Service.