Is Miyazaki a legitimately skilled director...

Is Miyazaki a legitimately skilled director, or are people just drawn in by the high-quality animation and vibrant art style of his movies?

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There are only 4, perhaps 5 noteworthy directors in all of commercial Japanese animation. Miyazaki is one of them.

If you aren't impressed by whichever of the movies you've seen try watching the On Your Mark music video which he directed, it's a quick and good showcase

He is great

neither

people keep telling each other that his movies are good and eventually his movies" become" good because people say they are.

Legitimately great, probably the greatest.

This is stupid though, there are plenty.
Unless your definition of noteworthy is more pretentious than mine, in which case whatever man.

That's literally everything though, it's an empty observation.

I've seen most of his movies by now and I really don't understand the hype behind his name. There were 2 that actually stood out to me. I've disliked everything else.

Art is subjective. I'm not a fan of Kubrick or Hitchcock, but others think they're the greatest directors of all time. All I can say is that Miyazaki movies are entertaining to me, while also doing unique things that I don't see in other movies.

I personally like him as a director because he focuses on wide and full shots. The two biggest things that make me hate a movie is a shakey camera simulating action and super close ups (Lord of the Rings did both in excess). Miyazaki does the opposite of both, while still having plenty of impact in the action and emotion in the characters. For me, that's good directing.

And to totally piss off the Miyazaki haters, I'm going to point out that Ponyo was a good movie.

>There were 2 that actually stood out to me
And only a select few have made more great animted movies than that, not only in Japan but globally.

The more I watch his films, the more I think he's great

As a director, Miyazaki is merely competent. His style of shot composition, as well as transitions, are merely average. Compared to his peer Takahata, he is very subpar in that regard. And don't even make me get into his deficiencies as a writer.

What makes Miyazaki stand out though is that he is capable of pulling off some incredible, stand-out scenes with unique visuals and designs and subtle animation, without much dialogue. The Hisaishi music helps out too. The train scene in Spirited Away is the best scene he has ever made, hands-down, and probably one of the best scenes in all of anime, period.

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he's alright

>As a director, Miyazaki is merely competent. His style of shot composition, as well as transitions, are merely average.

See Sometimes having a still camera with a wide shot in the preferred ratio is better than purposefully trying to be off ratio and at a random angle. The latter is the sign of a director who wants his shot to be noticed more than then plot and characters.

Takahata uses still camera all the time too. It's not about super slick transitions or shaky cam.

The problem with Miyazaki is that his method of communicating "movement" outside of actual animation is almost nonexistent. The maximum extent of his manipulating the camera are close-up shots for facial expressions. There were several particularly embarrassing moments in Princess Mononoke where he abused this technique and made the conversation feel awkward (most notably in the meeting between Ashitaka and San). Likewise, his scene transitions have little subtlety either. Miyazaki's skill with actual directing isn't really much.

Eh, Satoshi Kon and Mamoru Hosoda stood out to me a lot more. I think they're genuinely a better director, to be honest. I've liked almost everything I've seen by them. I think Miyazaki is just -okay- in comparison.

Tl;dr a bit of a talentless hack that gets by with a couple of good ideas and "pretty" animation.

Even in this scene , there's that awkward moment where Chihiro is gazing out the window of the train and suddenly CAMERA FACE ZOOM and it just breaks that immersion.

If he has a problem with directing, its so subtle that most people don't notice it. Its better too be too soft than to be too hard, using your analogy. I mean, even the average viewer watching the Star Wars prequels thinks all the over the shoulder switching for dialogue scenes and camera wipes are jarring, even if they don't understand what they are. While in a Miyazaki movie, things are done to a point that you almost don't notice the camera exists. Outside of a few examples like the weird shot in Spirited Away of Chihiro running through the flowers or a couple awkward switches from a close up to a full body shot in Mononokehime. But again, the average viewer isn't gonna notice an of those.

Story content and camera/storyboard direction are two different things.

How about if I only use Satoshi's name then?

>While in a Miyazaki movie, things are done to a point that you almost don't notice the camera exists.

Well yeah, because Miyazaki practically never uses the camera, and the few times that he does decide to "move" it, it's really awkward.

I mean there's really nothing wrong with it, Miyazaki is someone who clearly prefers actual animated motion as opposed to "implied" motion like in normal anime. Nausicaa's awkward manga paneling was a clear indicator of this too, where despite all the action scenes, the motion couldn't be felt and it was just mostly talking heads.

Well, I guess all I can say is P refer the Miyazaki style. Like in my previous example, I think a movie like Lord of the Rings would have been served far better with wide shots and a still camera, letting the actors do the work. Rather than 10 minute slow motion shots of Frodo foaming at the mount, then suddenly back to a shakey, zoomed in camera when Aragorn is chopping an orc in half. In one scene in particular, the camera cuts in the middle of a guys arm getting hacked off. Most likely them covering up a bad take. But it was just bad.