LogFAQs > #985605734

Salrite posted...

so many of his films have those issues of characters becoming unbelievably close so quickly and with little incentive.

Honestly, it's not that unbelievable, for people that are more extroverted. Stick two compatible extroverts in a room together (bearing in mind that, by virtue of being an artificial creation, characters in movies that are meant to end up in relationships are predefined to be compatible with each other), and they'll be best friends within the hour, let alone over the course of several days or weeks of being thrust together by whatever fantastic circumstance forms the movie's setting. That just stands out in anime in particular because so much anime is targeted toward a more introverted audience that can resonate better with more gradual relationships that take a long time to go anywhere because one or both parties are too shy/insecure to move forward.

Even outside of anime et al, so many romance stories feature a more outgoing person breaking through the shell of somebody more withdrawn specifically because you kind of need that to make the story last long enough to be worth telling. With two introverts, nothing ever goes anywhere unless you bring in a couple of extroverted wingmen to give them a push (which is also a common structure). With two extroverts, they hit it off after the first date and the only way to keep the story going is to throw some kind of dramatic wrench into their relationship (which isn't always what people want from a feel-good romance story).

Miyazaki's approach to relationships in his movies is to avoid "will-they/won't-they" situations and other tropes that pad relationships out with dramatic ambiguity. That can make them seem kind of abrupt compared to other media, but it is actually a fairly realistic portrayal of how relationships form when they aren't serving some kind of dramatic purpose (read: when actual people are having them), and it's a good fit for movies where those relationships aren't the main point.

It's also worth noting that when developing a relationship is the main point, Miyazaki does tend to draw it out longer. In Howl's Moving Castle, for example, it takes most of the movie for Sophie and Howl to end up properly together, thanks to Sophie taking a while to realize her feelings and then a while past that to overcome the insecurities that keep her bound by the curse. That's a case where the main point of the story is the development of their relationship and Sophie growing as a character to the point where she can have it, and as a result, she's not conveniently extroverted and self-assured enough to skip that gradual development for the sake of moving on with the real story. It's only the movies where the friendships/romance are secondary that they develop without any particular fanfare.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

It's almost as if everyone goes ooooh at the pretty moving pictures. It's not an American thing, it's a human thing.

Are you suggesting that Kyuubi's "Hail Britannia master race" schtick is actually a bunch of nonsense with no particular basis in reality?