Porco Rosso (1992)

A Peculiar Anime by Studio Ghibli-

This was very different from Studio Ghibli's main style and story. I noticed a few things that link to their other anime, for example, The Old Ladies looked a lot like Sophie from Howl's Moving Castle, (Studio Ghibli 2004) the whole "Animal who acts like a human" thing reminded me of the style that Spirited Away (Studio Ghibli 2001) had. Porco Rosso was released before these two other anime as it was released in 1992. This was directed by Studio Ghibli's most famous director Hayao Miyazaki is known for Howl's Moving Castle, Spirited Away, Mei and the Kitten Bus along with 32 other hit anime.

Porco Rosso goes by a genre of animation, romance, comedy, fantasy, adventure and magical realism it definitely fulfilled its purpose I could see romance between Curtis, Porco and Gena but a certain twist I never saw coming. The comedy was alright not the funniest thing in the world but it does release a nice little chuckle adventure was great! Magic didn't shine too much though it was visible but not too much.

Porco Rosso, if you didn't know, was based on a Japanese Manga (Japanese Comics) called Hikōtei Jidai (The Age of the Flying Boat) which I had no idea existed but it does! It was a Manga during 1989 based on vintage aeroplanes of the 1920s as well as having a few stories in the mix based on pilots and (What this anime targets on) Sea-Plane Pilots. Again I never noticed this Manga was a thing due to the credits is in Japenese so I wouldn't have known until I did my research. The Manga became a magazine regularly posted by Hayao Miyazaki releasing slightly more info onto Porco Rosso.

Porco Rosso also flew into Ghibli Fest 2018 (Annual Event which gives information of Ghibli Films and has screenings of Ghibli Films)

Let's talk about the animation style. It is anime which is almost like the old Disney animations which are like a flip-page book combined with computer graphics. I loved the style and I love anime especially Studio Ghibli anime. Love the graphics style!

The story is pretty bland and usual and not very interesting. Yes, the dogfight between Porco and Curtis is probably one of the greatest air fight scenes I have ever witnessed that includes Star Wars! The rest of the story, eh, not the greatest a bit boring, meh. It was quite complex as well, why wasn't Porco's story told in the first place! Without it, the anime just looked out of place and weird through the first hour and a bit.

The music was just fitting and AMAZING! I loved the nice calm open skies music it is very relaxing love it! Sadly it was the only featured background music and that is what I like I don't like obvious songs but just the nice background sound showing and telling the story through sound, there was obvious music but I didn't really listen to it I just like to listen out for the background music to tell what is happening next in the story.

Characters can be quite heroic, villainous, neutral or even annoying! I didn't see any villain in this, Donald Curtis to me seemed like a guy willing to love somebody and just was in a contract with pirates to get money, fair enough so to me he wasn't a villain. Porco also touches on this subject he seems like just a person who happens to be a pig for some reason (Like Spirited Away this indicates his Greed) who just wants money and clear skies and Curtis isn't a nemesis or enemy to him, just a little bit of a show-off, this made the story different from any old air story like Planes (2013 Disney, Pixar) which had Dusty a humble Crophopper and a racing plane like Ripslinger being arch enemies. This makes it a bit unique and different but also slightly, every so slightly boring.

The reason I gave Proco Rosso 3/5 stars as it was great, exciting and it met its requirements of the challenge it set out to accomplish but was also bland and slightly boring so, it was okay!

I recommend this to any anime lover, comedy seeker and romance searcher.

Porco Rosso (Michael Keaton, Shūichirō Moriyama, Shinnosuke Furumoto) is a pig who has no feelings to anybody but himself, he bounty hunts to get money for a living. He clashes with Donald Curtis (Cary Elwes, Akio Ōtsuka) both of them are famous air pilots, both of them have an ego the size of Earth this would cause problems. Porco land-bound from the air arrives at Piccolo for a plane fix up by a young girl Fio Piccolo. (Kimberly Williams-Paisley, Akemi Okamura) Fio must make Porco trust her, Porco must gain his reputation back and Curtis must find and kill Porco for good...