I dunno what it is, but whenever I see it I feel as if I have been there before.

As much as I love Spirited Away and Castle in the Sky, I've been so bummed Miyazaki hasn't returned to more adult storylines.

Princess Mononoke and Nausicaa are two of my top ten films. I'd do anything to have Miyazaki make one more.

I even bought Miramax's old marketing website and kept it online [1].

I was lucky enough to teach English in Hokkaido [2], which is where Ghibli animators drew inspiration for Princess Mononoke. It's such a beautiful place, and you can feel it in the film.

[1] http://www.princess-mononoke.com/ (I should get SSL certs but I haven't touched it in years.)

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46035689

That whole sequence is inspired, all the way up to the light hopping on one leg (I vaguely remember this as an element in Eastern European Baba Yaga stories, although it may have been my dad’s bed time invention). The train’s path reminds me of the causeways that connected Tenochtitlan but slightly underwater.

Spirited Away is the only movie I’ve seen in theaters more than once and I still can’t place my finger on how it can be so unique.

The only equivalents I can think of is watching Alien for the first time five years ago or playing Morrowind as a kid.

What did you use to do the scraping?

They are no less beautiful nor are they gone after some gradient descent has slithered over them, so worry not.