Detail Diatribe: The Anime That Inspired Wind Waker

hello everybody and welcome to another fun and funky detail diet tribe I am today's I'll be the judge of that well okay hello everybody Welcome to another detail diet tribe judgment pending I am your fun and funky host with my all tasty slideshow and I'm so ready to go today that's a lie I'm like 50% ready to go today I made this thing in a Fugue State and I don't remember what is on half the slides but I'm I'm ready to go I'm ready to explore this strange new world together and I am blue and I'm also ready to go I watched Castle in the Sky last night and I have thoughts a lot of things make a lot more sense I'll tell you that hell yeah I love it when I give people homework and they like it as you can see from our opening slide today I want to talk about specifically I'm trying to keep myself on track but I'm making no promises I want to talk about how ha Miyazaki and the works of Miyazaki and later Studio jibli shaped The Legend of Zelda a franchise where a lot of people have observed some fingerprints in recent games but uh I I I just want to just want to Deep dive a little bit you know I just kind of want to get in get in sauce on these two things that I really like because of course haam aaki has been in the biz since the 60s in various ways and he's made some extremely influential things that have had a very large impact on a lot of people a lot of works of art I am a huge fan of looking at a story and being like why why is it like that why why did they do that and one of the more interesting ways that you can answer that question is oh it's like that because something else was like it first and they got the idea from there and I I just love tracing out kind of like inspirational genealogical trees and Miyazaki finds himself in in an awful lot of artistic family trees so I wanted to talk about that and we will be keeping focused on Zelda except when I don't want to just fair warning gibli and Miyazaki is definitely kind of a a singular presence in culture and we're lucky enough to basically be able to have seen the career unfold as far as it has for those of us who you know grew up with the movies or in my case was was relative latecomer because it is it is rare that you get a Creator whose work influences everything that comes after it and there there is truly a before this Creator shows up and an after and I I know we can talk a lot about you know like Tolen for Fantasy I think I I don't know what the word is that I would use to describe the the gibli style and genre but there is a genre that exists now that didn't before that I think we're going to unpack a little bit of today so there's a it's it's good A lot of people who existed earlyish in the space of 2D animation have just irrevocably shaped the genre because it was such a new thing there were a lot of ways to trailblaze and I think that that the way Miyazaki specifically plays with animation is is pretty unique and I think that's a big part of why it's so influential but to start off with some lwh hanging fruit breath of the wild everybody remembers when this first came when the trailer first dropped the number one thing everyone was saying was like hey that's a little that's a little jibi isn't it that's hang on wait a minute there were a ton of people CU of course we remember when the first trailer dropped it was a figure on Horseback being chased by this giant [ __ ] robot octopus laser thing and then the person whoops off their cloak and and jumps off the horse and draws an arrow and it's link he's wearing blue this time that's weird but it's link holy [ __ ] uh and everyone was like wow that's crazy and a few people were like hang on that's the chase scene from Princess monoke where uh Prince ashitaka is being chased by the [ __ ] up boar thing that's just that's just that though like that's what that is's like shut up shut up shut up and then when the game dropped everyone was like so I was right there were just a lot of people were like wow yeah okay first like proper open world Zelda since Wind Waker this really like feels like like somebody took the the jibli movie aesthetic you know the the rolling fields of grass the wind whipping through it the the ancient ruins overgrown you know they took that and they were like let's let link run around in that okay great amazing cuz classic Miyazaki I've described it as cottage Corp post-apocalypse you know you have this beautiful like ancient Advanced civilization that was unmade by its own hubris and now nature is reclaiming it because there's a very strong theme especially in the early stuff of like nature Conquering the works of man pretty much effortlessly link himself has a new jish look a lot of people were drawing the Princess Mona no connections and of course this as I've mentioned everybody noticed this one I'm not going to linger on this too far because it's already well trodden ground but I did want to point out a couple things just like some highlights of breath of the wild where it's like oh yeah I can see the fingerprints here obviously Link's spiffy new design has big ashitaka energy and everyone's like what are you going to do [ __ ] up his arm in the sequel and Moto was like what no what why would we do that Moto is like I'm already four parallel universes ahead of you um the the guardian robots uh have a lot going on but they also bear a strong similarity to the uh the guardian robots from laputa which cuz you did your jibli homework you know what I'm talking about I I do the tentacle arm got the segmented arms the segmented tentacle arms the sort of monocular laser eyeball the supposed loyalty to their masters and of course tiny little pockets of civilization absolutely Chaka with windmills that's a screen cap from nasika of the Valley of the wind uh which I will bring up more later there's a lot of like aesthetic and and Vibes based similarities there's a few more they even do the little like textile patterned intro explaining the premise of the story which was a staple of the uh the earlier um Studio jibli movies nasika and Castle in the Sky both have that sort of opening Montage under the credits which mirrors when impa's like so here's the dealio with this version of the timeline and now the dragons have finally spawned uhuh yeah cororo have a lot of similarities to the the little funky dudes from uh again princess monoke as does the lord of the mountain there there's a lot of very clear princess monoke influence although monoke is not one of the movies that I imprinted onto like a baby bird when I was little I watched it later in the game and liked it but uh it's it's not as foundational in my psyche as Castle in the Sky and nowo so there is a video that I wanted to recommend uh that unpacks this in a lot more detail so I don't have to it's this channel Beyond jibli and they have a video called with eyes unclouded how Studio jibli inspired breath of the wild it's very good and it delves a lot more deeply into how the themes of breath of the wild also are drawing from a lot of jibli influence especially princess monoke so I highly recommend you guys check that out I will link it in the description cuz it's it's real good and this is a person who cares a lot more about Princess mon okay than I do so their analysis a lot better than mine and then of course 6 years later tears of the Kingdom hits us with even more jibli Vibes very very blatant ones in this one they're mostly drawn from the same set of movies as breath of the wild was which is Nika Castle in the Sky and Princess monoke there's a little bit of Spirited way for flavor because everyone had already drawn the jibli connection when breath of the wild came out when tears of the Kingdom dropped everyone was basically like oh cool they're doing it more because the trailer put a lot of focus on Sky Islands so everyone was like oh yeah I remember the jibli movie about this La the Castle in the Sky 1986 it was great I already made an entire video about tears of the kingdom and the sky island specifically with a hold up version about Castle in the Sky and and how the aesthetic is drawn from the same place I'm probably going to understand that video a lot better now having actually seen La why yeah that was following along well enough but now I'm like oh okay yeah I see how it fits together yeah I got to get more cavaliere about assigning you homework for these things um so also a lot of people pointed out that Link's newly [ __ ] up right arm was very on brand for prince ashitaka and princess monoke who literally opens the movie by getting his right arm absolutely wrecked by the malice like evil curse of hatred that is poisoning all of the Godlike Divine beasts you could say in that movie turning them against their each other and the lands they were meant to protect I'm anyway so a lot of people were like okay yeah I I I smell what you're stepping in so there's a lot more little like te teers of the Kingdom highlights that drawn the design again Zelda gets a spiffy new jibles redesign she's sporting the patented Miyazaki heroin haircut and of course the sky islands draw very strongly aesthetically from Castle in the sky but the depths were the big surprise in tears of the Kingdom cuz none of the advertising was like yeah you can go under Hyrule into an entire second map they really buried the lead on that one but it very strongly resembles uh the Sea of Decay buried yeah yeah so so so it really strongly looks like the Sea of Decay from Nika it's got these like alien plants there's this sort of like miasma in the air so that's very extremely cool real quick spoiler warning the game's been out for a little while but still just quick spoiling the entire end of the game okay just just so everyone's on the same page in terms of the most blatant chunk of inspiration that was taken almost intact from a jibli movie uh our hero helps the dragon they love regain their identity causing them to revert to human form and fall out of the sky together fun fact when I was midway through the game and I had realized that Zelda had turned herself into a dragon and lost her identity initially I was like oh God is the C going to let me fix this what am I going to do and then I was like hm there is a jibi movie about this so the odds are pretty good I'm going to be able to get her back and I was so happy to be right but yes so so the the jibli bones are all the way down in this game and I like it quite a bit also once again second recommendation from beond jibli uh they have another video about how tears of the kingdom is shaped by ji movies especially with an in-depth exploration of Zelda's characterization as a very Nika esque uh sort of science heroin ecologist trying to study the world around her just a lot of very interesting unpacking again these videos already exist so I don't need to rre ground and I'm very happy about it because there's a lot there's a lot more to discuss one of those things to discuss is that this is pretty clearly like purposeful this isn't an accident this isn't we're drawing from the same general space of tropes and the same general cultural Z guys like it's a very Like Loving homage but it's pretty overt that uh in my opinion I will say this is the kind of thing that cannot be scientifically proven but like come on we've been new um I do want to highlight that like I think this is a very loving thing it's very clear that the way the new Zelda games draw on the aesthetic of what I call the jibi gold medalists is that they they are clearly like these these movies are beautiful the stories are beautiful the characters are beautiful I want to be able to capture that and recreate it in a context that people can explore freely as an open world and I think there's a very interesting conversation to be had about how inspiration and originality are sort of at war with each other and you know there's there's been a lot of discussion this year about uh originality and like plagiarism and stuff like that there's been a lot of conversations about like this concept has been like stolen from this place and when I look at something like this I I'm kind of like okay this is how this is supposed to look this is how it looks when you you're inspired by a work of art that you love and you're like I want this to make my art better rather than hey that's a good idea I bet I could take it and nobody would know like yeah I I will say if you if you go back a slide I think one of the things that that makes this work whereas you know like some things are just plagiarism is that this is essenti the concept of of ma the the empty interval where you're just kind of in the space and and Miaki does that with the movies and Nintendo manages to capture that in the games and the idea that this isn't just like you know a copy of of plot beats and design Aesthetics but it is essentially an adaptation yeah with a lot of considerations put into that to make breath of the wild and tears of the Kingdom work in the context of a game with all of this gibl inspiration I feel like there's there's a very strong element of we're taking movies and then Translating that into a game that I won't say it provides them with cover because there is still a sense of of The Inspirations are clear they're present no one's fooling anyone here no one's trying to fool anyone but I I think there there is a lot to be said for the fact that this is fundamentally a work of adaptation from one medium to another that allows for breath of the wild and tears of the king to still have a lot of originality to them because in games no one had done this before and they still had a fantastic accomplishment to be able to do that yeah but there's a bit of balance between what is just very very good taking of inspiration and and loving homage and then what is truly something new and Innovative in a video game space that hadn't been done before via adaptation yeah a a way to take something that that Miyazaki had figured out how to do and translate it into a completely different medium and there's a lot of very interesting stuff to unpack there but I did think I I needed to at least like bring up the whole thing about like originality and inspiration because this is this is a complicated space I I've got a friend who's like working in like IP law when it comes to like music and this is a a really horrifying fight that keeps happening of like you can't use that chord progression that's my chord progression and it's like what um I don't know I don't know if that's correct like that kind of thing people keep trying to sue Ed Sharon because he's like one of the popular you know musicians on Earth and one of his trials a couple years ago uh someone took him to court for saying that I think it was shape of you like copied some other song and as part of his defense he took out a guitar in court and started playing a bunch of like other songs in different key signatures and stuff and it's like all this [ __ ] sounds the same if it's in the same key so of course it's going to sound so it's just they're in the same key that's as far as it goes yeah but then you get cases like this where it's like this is very clearly and purposefully drawing inspiration from these movies these shows the The Works of this Creator and it's clearly because the the creators of Zelda think that Miyazaki is very cool and that that the art he creates is very impactful but there is a degree to which like I I study tropes for a living I don't give a about originality but I think that there is a certain degree of like hm how much of this is okay that's just inherent in this conversation but it is interesting to me that jibli and Zelda have very similar vibes you know they're both in large part about like you're a kid of undetermined age and the world is big and complicated and very very old and it used to be so glorious but now you know things are sort of different and and complicated like every Zelda game even the first Zelda even Skyward Sword is like back in the ancient days when older [ __ ] was happening the old [ __ ] were in ancient times problem um but they have very similar energy and verified Gilgamesh moment but it's it's interesting and it's kind of surprising that it's taken the Zelda team this long to start really leaning into the the jibli connection just kidding surprise fos it's actually been there the entire time welcome to the rug pole that I spoiled for blue as soon like before I was going to make a detailed eye on this I was like I just found this crazy thing and I was like ah [ __ ] I spoiled the twist for the okay well whatever so let's talk about 1978 7 years before studio jibli is officially founded that ha Miyazaki directs a loose 26 episode adaptation of the novel The Incredible tide it is not very faithful to the book but it is unmistakably absolutely chako with Concepts that Miyazaki will come to rely on a lot for reasons I haven't been able to completely lock down it does not receive an official North American English release until 2021 so while it was very known and influential in the rest of the world statistically speaking most of you guys have never heard of it and very few of you have probably watched it I know we have a pretty hefty International audience but the US and Canada still outweigh most of the rest of you guys I'm sorry you're just outnumbered Europeans are like oh finally arriving at the party well the Story begins in the distant future of 2008 the world is ripped apart by super weapons which shatter the continents and sink the vast majority of the world below the waves only tiny pockets of civilization remain on isolated islands that used to be mountaintops then in the distant future of 2028 A Dangerous Power hungry warlord wants to reawaken the ancient power that sank the earth below the waves and use it to conquer the new world the story yeah the Story begins as mentioned the distant future of 2028 Conan is a young boy who lives alone on a tiny island with that Nifty rocket ship embedded in it with his grandfather and uh one morning a mysterious young girl washes up on shore surrounded by seabirds her name is Lana she's being pursued by very bad people from the island of industria these names are from the book so Miyazaki is not the one who was like on the nose like the bad guys are industria uh they want her important grandfather who can give them access to the ancient weapons that destroyed the world back in the day Lana and Conan become fast friends but Lana of course is immediately abducted by bad guys and Conan's grandfather is mortally wounded and then as he's dying he basically tells Conan hey look you can't stay on this island alone and nobody can live alone no man is an island you could say you have to go out into the world and find true friends tells the story of the how the rocket ship got embedded in the island it's great the show's good and then he dies Conan Grieves again Miyazaki loves taking a long time to show small moments and Conan experiencing basically the death of the only person who he's ever really known we we get to see it play out he processes it and it's it's pretty rough but it's it's a very gentle scene kind of as we see this kid process uh grief and it's very cool to me that even this early in his career miyazaki's already kind of got the Rhythm down that makes his work so so iconic Conan builds a raft sets out for industria bunch of stuff happens he ends up basically signing on on this crew of sailors that later become Pirates hey wait a minute yeah Lana is being held in this big island Fortress he has to sneak in climb around the outside he find Lana but he fails to rescue her and then a bunch of other stuff happens and then for 20 more episodes also happen one thing that's cool about future boy Conan is that it is very clearly the blueprint for my favorite gibli movie your jibli homework for the day yeah I was going to say hey I recognize those uh those those braids familiar yeah ifen is very clearly a very early first draft of the story that Miyazaki later refined into La the Castle in the Sky down Earth boy finds a mysterious twintail girl being pursued by ruthless very bad military people because she can give them access to an ancient super weapon and they become friends but she's kidnapped and held in an impregnable Fortress and then a stin with some Pirates and they reunite and then there's an even more perilous adventure to stop the villain from utilizing that reawakened ancient power to decimate the world you guys can't see the hand gestures I'm doing right now but trust me I've been voguing this entire time uh so this was already very cool cuz I did not know about this show until like two weeks ago and then it's like oh this is just the alpha release of my favorite movie of all time that's cool and as a quick tangent just to indulge myself just a little bit uh this is also why the episodes that Miyazaki directed of the anime lopon the third are fascinating to me because the thing is masterpieces are hard to unpack you can't see the factory seams on a story that's really well put together which is why I think an artist's early work can really let you sort of take apart what their early stuff was and then now that you know how those are put together you can sort of take apart their later works and see what parts work what parts maybe didn't how did they refine the process as they got older and more practiced it's also fascinating to see an idea that they clearly couldn't not get out of their head for decades that's really cool to see yeah and that's why I think there are two episodes of lupon the thir that that were written and directed by ha oaki and they are so fascinating because of exactly that one of them is wings of death Albatross and uh the bad guy has a flying fortress full of nukes that he wants to use to conquer the world and the entire climax of the episode is a dog fight in the air fuo has an unusually short haircut that episode and kicks more ass in one episode than she has for the entire season so it's like okay so so ji's ass kicking Shorthair heroins obsession with planes and bad guy really into nukes and and dominating the world from an aerial Fortress okay those are already established and then 10 episodes later the final part of Lupa and the third part two F all my beloved Lupin has robot war machines that look exactly like the ones we later see in Castle in the Sky and a short hair redhead heroine who is a dead ringer for princess Nika and it's just very interesting that just these two random episodes of this goofy ass Master Thief Heist show are just coincidentally like smoking guns for things that would shape the first 20 years of of miyazaki's independent career but that's the that's the only tangent I'm going to uh indulge in because I do want to talk a little bit more about future boy Conan and how it itself is an adaptation but not a particularly faithful one it's an adaptation of a novel Mi isaki didn't write I've read through some of it it's pretty short uh and and quite simple the the post-apocalyptic flooded setting ripped apart by War the militant industrialists and the bad guys that are looking for lost Tech are elements of the book that clearly appealed to Miyazaki but then he did a bunch of other stuff for one thing the heroes are aged down in the book is like 17 the apocalypse only happened 5 years ago so he like remembers the end of the world and has sort of just grown up on his own and gotten super buff he and Lana are friends in the book but they don't really see each other until nearly the end of the book They're basically playing out parallel story lines and are instead essentially communicating semi- telepathically through a seabird that lot of his friends with I'll get back to it so when when Miyazaki got a hold of it he was like okay they're going to be kids they're going to be innocent they are going to be Children of the new world they only know this after the end Island life and they are happy with it they're content they know how to live in harmony with nature they understand they don't like yearn for the old world which is a big foundational difference between that and the way the the book is is structured but it's also something that Miyazaki really likes the idea that like the people who cling to the weapons of the past and the mistakes of the past are the bad guys always and it's it's the good guys who are people who who can like look to the Future and and you know not make the same mistakes and live in in Humble harmony with nature and stuff like that uh Lana being personally targeted by bad guys is different the entire final seven episodes of the show are basically completely original the book basically ends with oh no was tsunami good news we survived the tsunami end of the book and that all happens in episode 19 and then there's like seven more episodes still the base concept here is not original and again this concept of like originality versus inspiration is something I kept coming back to as I was looking through this because like we'll get to the Wind Waker parall I have a bunch of slides for that but obviously when I look at something like that my first instinct is oh a lot of the things I liked from this aren't hm they weren't your idea is what you're saying hm you got them from something else that's good hm but then at the same time you look back and it's like this was also an adaptation of this other thing and a lot of the parts of that that I really like were Miyazaki originals but a lot of the parts that I like were not the the flooded Earth the the postapocalyptic island world you know the sort of water core concept was already a winner it's just a matter of of different execution between the book and the uh the uh the series yeah exactly and it's almost like like calling it an adaptation almost feels wrong cuz Miaki was clearly inspired by the incredible tide but then he built his own story out of the parts he liked dropped the parts he didn't and then just put in a bunch of new stuff and the funny thing is he did the exact same thing in 2004 when he adapted Howl's Moving Castle so clearly this is just how he rolls like it's like I'm not going to I'm not going to sacrifice my artistic vision for your artistic Vision section of the book with an idea that he doesn't think he a winner I'm going to pretend I didn't see that yeah exactly and like as I recall Diana wi Jones was not like the most happy about that cuz it's like I wrote my book the way I did for a reason but this is part of what's so interesting about whenever you have stories that are drawing on each other or adapting each other because you know the the artist made their story that way for a reason and then another artist being like interesting let me just carve this part off carve this part off make this part better like like I could see that being a smidge hurtful but the art that comes out of it is is just different it's not you know not bad so I just think that this is a really interesting like Waypoint in in the progress of miyazaki's career because it's like this is a story that inspired a lot of other stories and it is itself not original by its very nature self- admittedly an adaptation of a book that Miyazaki didn't write there there's an idea that's that's rolling around in my head and I'm trying to figure out what exactly it is but there's there's definitely in every piece of art it's a conversation between at least two things maybe three which is the the artists the inspiration and maybe some other third thing because secret third thing with Future Boy Conan there's clearly you know the original story and then there's all this stuff that Miyazaki brought to it so it is an adaptation and I guess in the same way that we were saying you know like tears of the wild tears of the Kingdom breath of the wild God so many media properties are in my head I'm going to mix all the names up um those are adaptations of you know gibli movies in general this is an adaptation of a book but I think I I kind of like the idea that in making an adaptation the adapting Creator will leave their mark on it in a way that transforms it into something new cuz then that means the original still has a place and a purpose because there are so many adaptations that exist that essentially like softly pitch themselves as you don't need that dumb book anymore cuz now you've got the feature film it's like okay maybe that's not a a helpful mindset to have so I I can understand if the original authors are like yeah you got of changed some stuff I guess you didn't like that part that I wrote huh all right big smart guy over there but part of me likes the idea that in doing something that is seemingly not that original choosing to adapt a story that already exists that they leave a distinct mark on it that makes it different and unique from what it was adapting and maybe Dominic Noble has more thoughts on this since he's you know all about adaptation and stuff like that but there's some idea in here that's that's whirling around in my head that I can't quite articulate maybe we'll we'll we'll pick up on this uh when when Zelda comes into play so so red take us take us on to the next slide well yes I've doled long enough it's time to actually get to the point so there was a 2002 interview about Wind Waker where mamoto and alumo were asked um because Wind Waker of course has a visual style that no previous Zelda game had it's very you know chibi cell-shaded very cute so a lot of people were asking about it and they were like did other artists work inspire you on working on the game and Al Numa said no and mamoto said well Mr ala Numa come on but me was like well you know we got a lot of anime fans on the team and I got to say yeah you know my neighbor todoro was pretty good lapata was also quite good it's like oh interesting two works by Miyazaki that aren't the one that shaped your entire game how cool but they they bring up this interesting point that like they don't want to make a game based on someone else's style but they do want to take something people have seen and do something new with it which is an an interesting angle it is playing a little bit koi in the parts of the world that we're lucky enough to have access to Future Boy Conan before 2021 it's a little bit of what seems to be kind of an Open Secret that Future Boy Conan is very strongly like an inspiration of Wind Waker I went looking for this cuz I here's the funny thing I I could have sworn that after I watched fut con and I like read through the TV Tropes page and I could have sworn there was like a little trivia on there there was like inspired Wind Waker cuz that was just in my head and then I couldn't [ __ ] find it so I don't know how like maybe I don't know maybe the mus is divinely inspired me in a dream and I woke up like Zelda future Bo Conan um but there's like all the these just random comments from forums in like 2011 that are like yeah I mean we all know that it's inspired by by Future Boy con it's like yeah yeah we all know and a handful of people have have noticed this influence but it's as far as I can tell it's never been openly cited by the creators as an inspiration probably because if they said that everyone would be able to see it yeah and this is this is interesting because the Nintendo team is always very koi and Sly and not sneaky but they they like to play their cards very close to the chest when it comes to how they make their games and I don't know if this is just like a corporate philosophy that Nintendo has stuck to but they they do not talk much uh if ever about the the tech behind their games they gave some presentations about how they created the open world for breath of the wild and then scrubbed them from the internet so uh when when Mark Brown game makers to it was making a video called essentially how Nintendo made breath of the wild he had to get someone to translate a bunch of old designed documents in Japanese because all the English language ones have been scrubbed Nintendo just kind of operates like this they really don't open up their creative process that much so I can understand someone like ad being like no I've never been inspired by anything and Shar MIM is like a come on buddy but this honestly it's it's very typical for how Nintendo operates they do not show their hand almost at all compared to uh other Studios or other you know artists in general so it's it's weird it's weird but it's it's very Nintendo not just with the story stuff they do this all the time like yeah no my ideas just sprang fully formed from forehead or Zeus I just know the whole thing from the ground up I've never even Zeus also my my idea original that's a I've never even seen a television uh so let's just let's just and let's just present our evidence before the courts when our Story begins our hero who is a young boy who lives alone with his grandparent and has known no world other than this vast ocean hangs out with a young girl with twin pigtails who is constantly surrounded by seabirds in bad time to drink tea sorry sorry um that's okay and uh in Future Boy Conan this is because Lana is telepathic and uh mostly uses her powers to communicate with birds in Wind Waker it's just because Errol has a seemingly inexplicable connection with seabirds wonder where that came from the piece is short-lived because soon the girl is abducted by a massive birdlike thing under the command of a malevolent power hungry desperate believes she has some connection to the ancient power he wants to reawaken our hero tries to pursue but fails the bird thing flies away with the girl in toe and he has no choice but to pursue by boat by joining up with some Pirates yay pirates yeah I so this one was funny because of course in this case the in Future Boy K and the birdlike thing is a sea plane called the Falco and in Wind Waker it is the Helmer Rock King the first first appearance of a helck uh I I checked the wiki specifically because magenta tipped me off when I was telling her my mying going for Pepe Sylvia conspiracy board she was like hey hang on if Wind Waker the first game where they threw a giant bird in there I think it was because they needed an equivalent to a sea plane so that was pretty funny our hero of course must attempt to rescue the abducted girl from a heavily guarded Oceanic Fortress and he has to sneak in by scaling the outside including some very precarious ledge climbing fortunately he knows where she's being held because her window is surrounded by seabirds so that's a lot of fun God the the comparison is astounding this three shot reverse shot wow obviously you know Wind Waker is bringing a little bit of its own style to the kind of cartoony a tree with a bunch of anchors hanging off of it whereas the prison on the left is such a fascinating shape I it's like the Stanley Cup from hockey what the [ __ ] is up with that it is a triangular shaped building with three identical Towers at different Corners it it's pretty interesting and if I recall correct irly in Wind Waker of course link is like oh my gosh that's the bird that stole my sister she must be here and in Future Boy con it's like hey that's the sea plane that stole Lana she must be here it's very so that's that's a lot of fun there were a lot of parallels I had to cut it down so it would fit on the slide so our hero escapes The Fortress but uh does not rescue the girl exactly a few things happen there some of the things kind of go out of order between these adaptations at this point but fortunately our hero is found/ rescued by a Gruff Mentor figure who turns out to secretly be an important figure from the pre-apocalyptic old world transformed to be unrecognizable this didn't click until like 2 days after I started the slideshow I was like yeah yeah I just don't know if after the Forsaken Fortress it really lines up and I was like wait a [ __ ] second the boat I forgot the boat so in in Future Boy Conan they basically just get found by this crotchy old guy with an ey patch who works on a a diving vessel and he initially just seems to be kind of a hard ass but then surprise this is actually L's grandfather the bad guys are after he's got a different haircut and he lost an eye when his ship exploded and meanwhile in Wind Waker it's boat who is secretly King boat King boat King I am king of boat also just a little fun side note at some point after Our Hero's rescue attempt goes a ride the girl our hero was trying to rescue is taken onto a pirate ship while our hero is stuck doing other plot stuff in Wind Waker This Is How They shell arrel for the rest of the game so link can focus on the plot and Tetra can take her place as main girl because of course errel is a fake out she's not actually the important girl and Future Boy Conan this is a very brief interlude Conan fails to save Lana essentially the Pirates go Rogue and break her out but leave Conan in jail and then he has to break out on his own and catch up with them and save Lana from them it's a slight extra complication but both of these stories are extremely Rife with excess complications so of course we have to talk about the main villain because of course his evil scheme is to reawaken an ancient power from the old world which to do it he needs a girl who has the power he needs to activate it and his goal is to expose this ancient place to the Rays of the sun which will give him the power to conquer the world that sank beneath the waves all those years ago in Future Boy Conan it's this guy Lepa he is very much a prototype for the bad guy in lapata of Musa voiced by Mark Hamill in the dub and of course in Wind Waker it's it's Ganondorf we all know it's Ganondorf yeah the evil scheme in Future Boy Conan is spe it's kind of fun cuz basically the bad guys are like we want the secret to solar energy and it's like wait I thought you guys were like evil industrialists and it's like well you see even solar energy can be bad in the hands of evil industrialists so that's pretty cool and the funny thing is most of ganon's plan is just I need the Triforce so I can make the wish and then when he's doing his evil monologue he specifies like let the Rays of the sun hit this important location and it's like hey wait a minute you don't even need to do that it's it's just because of the solar energy thing hang on Jac some part of this makes me want to yell about the sun it's in my bones it's in my DNA so in the end after knock down drag out fight with our hero in the crumbling remains of the ancient power the villain is defeated the last remnants of the old world are utterly destroyed and sink beneath the waves the gruff Mentor figure says that a new era is beginning it's time for the old world to Die the children can create a new world a new future then he dies peacefully SL intentionally our heroes are picked up by a boat full of all their friends and they sail off to build a new better world together so in Wind Waker the end of the game is that they're like we're going to find the land that will be the next Hyrule and in Future Boy Conan it's like we're going to go back to to Conan's Island which due to some Shenanigans is now an entire exposed continent that they can just populate uh so that's fun weird sequel to Future Boy Conan where it's all trains for some reason there is a weird prototype there is a sequel of Future Boy Conan but I haven't watched it because Miyazaki is not involved it's called like Tiga adventure and there's a couple fun little details that I noticed while I was unpacking this that might be like a little purposeful on my and by might be just imagine big quote marks around that one of them that I thought was was fun I I didn't even remember this shot until I was uh rewatching some playthroughs of Wind Waker to brush up so when when Ganondorf just absolutely bodies link to take his piece of the Triforce the sword goes flying and embeds itself very close to Zelda's head and I was like oh [ __ ] that's crazy and then in Future Boy Conan there's a part where Conan intentionally throws his Harpoon super close to an unconscious Lana to scare off some guards and I was like H okay there's a lot of adorable little piglets in Wind Waker islands and I think it's on outset island where every time you come back like the pig is bigger that's funny yeah and there's a little like sidekick pig called tasty in Future Boy Conan that by the end of the show is just absolutely massive and has piglets of her own and of course there's this ship with a grabby claw arm and people in diving suits that use it to salvage scrap from the bottom of the I mean that part's pretty DiCaprio pointing at the screen if I'm being honest yeah that's that's not beating the allegations I mean none of this is but and like sometimes it's hard to tell sometimes things are coincidences sometimes tropes are widespread sometimes things are drawing on the same common source material sometimes things are coincidences um I don't think that's what this is I agree but again I I genuinely kind of love this because the directors were candid about having the aaki fans on the team this is just proof that they were telling the truth kind of but you know this is this is still kind of like when we were talking about breath of the wild and tears of the Kingdom it's like okay okay there's like visual references there's homages but like the the plot is pretty distinct and you know barring one scene in the Final Act of the game you know it's it's not too similar to any like major plot beats of any of the jibli movies that it's clearly being inspired by but like this is uh this is kind of in a different weight class so so this this part I snagged on a little bit because I'm like I do like this a lot and Wind Waker is a good game but like is it is it okay for it to be good because it's borrowing so much good stuff from this other good thing and there's a really interesting interview that I wanted to bring up full article translated from Japanese English by this YouTuber uh rise no and it it was from 1992 so like 10 years before Wind Waker and it was shago mamoto and hay Miyazaki being interviewed together and it's a little bit awkward because they don't really agree on almost anything uh there like Miyazaki clearly doesn't really understand G the purpose of game development they're like oh do you have like a video game that you would want to do and he'd be like yes it would be fully animated hand animated of course by my team and it would take place in World War II and you attempt to survive by choosing whether you will be a conscientious objector or Aid in the war effort and it's like hm I don't think that would be very good Miaki mamoto meanwhile is talking a lot about like how oh current technology allows you to to just scan a 3D environment and bring it into the computer completely so you can see it from every angle and there's this really interesting point in the conversation when they start discussing environment design because Miyazaki talks a lot about how he thinks so much about the fictional environment in his stories he wants to make them immersive he wants to make it so that the audience can almost like smell the breeze feel the ground under their feet you know hear the water moving in a tree how how they're shaped by the people who live in them how they how they're moving how they're changing how they're interacted with and for him scenery is a lot more than how it looks and he thinks it is an absolutely necessary skill for animators to be able to capture that feeling and make the environment feel lived in and immersive and you can tell just by looking at the backgrounds of any JBL movie that this is something that he cares about so deeply he's really dedicated to making his worlds feel very immersive and alive and mamoto feels the same way although he does talk a little bit about like yeah you know I I think it's pretty cool how instead of doing all that work we can just scan a 3D environment and put it all on the computer so the player can just look around it but there is a similarity where they're talking about how figuring out how to appeal to a gamer's five senses through only sound and visuals is this unique challenge but he does think it's a little bit easier in the medium of video games because the player is controlling the character so if the designers want to make the setting feel alive they can just render it in that way and then let the player play through it from every angle and find all those little moments of like oh that's a fun little detail that makes this setting feel more alive so it's pretty clear that like they're both seeking immersion but they are pursuing different goals because Miyazaki wants to immerse the audience through these carefully crafted vignettes that show the world as being alive and mamoto wants to turn the player loose in the world and let them immerse themselves as they see fit cuz like Miyazaki as mentioned in the interview he doesn't seem to really get the idea of like let the player do whatever they want because he's very much a Storyteller so it's like I want to show this world from this very specific angle I want to let the characters play through it in this specific way and that's a that's a fundamental disconnect in the way that they're approaching storytelling yeah this is really interesting because they're saying something that if you zoom really far out is similar but when you see the different mediums that they are pursuing the ways in which you have to actually go about that to get the desired experience in this case of of immersion within a world is completely distinct it it it is almost like the antithesis of how you go about it in each way whereas Miyazaki is very much like I control every frame every sound that happens in the course of this film so I will curate the experience that I want the viewer to have whereas with video games the language of design and interactivity is the opposite the developer has very little control over the moment to moment of what the player does I mean if you build a game with this many levels the player is going to do this many levels but in terms of what each individual you know second or minute of Play Time looks like they're surrendering a lot of control to the player so how you create immersion is very different it's fascinating to see them have such different perspectives the kernel of it in the middle is that they they agree with the importance of immersion but their methods are almost completely opposite exactly it's so weird to see that they can I I guess over the course of of long and winding careers for for Nintendo and for for Studio gibli to touch on a lot of these same ideas and make plot beats and themes carry so smoothly from one to the other and feel so distinct to this style where you know breath of the wild and tears of the Kingdom were like yeah this is this is gibly but a video game it's in the context of this interview it's crazy that that is possible given how different the language of immersion is for one and the other yeah that's part of what I think is so interesting here because these two clearly are are sort of struggling to to click with each other and and click with each other's art forms and understand what makes them work you know Miyazaki will say like I I love hand crafting an environment and showing tiny slices of it to the audience to really make them feel like they're there you know a single shot of like like a glass beer bottle at the bottom of a little clear River and like the sound of water moving through the the trunk of a tree and then M Ando will be like oh don't worry you don't need to do all that work we we can do that with computers now and and meanwhile you know M and Moto will be like yeah we love just turn the audience loose and and let them explore and Miaki was like I would love to make them explore the the the the horrifying social trap that World War II inflicted upon the people that that it captured in its net and and forced them to choose between starvation or participation in war crimes it's like okay yeah um you're talking about very different things all the time forever and this interesting point where the ven diagrams like almost intersect where they're they're both understanding the same purpose of environment design but they're both approaching it from the perspective of basically masters of two entirely different mediums and it almost feels like it would be impossible to resolve because Miyazaki crafts these stories with worlds that feel lived in and Alive with an enormous Focus put on how they work and how the characters interact with them as they move through the space which reveals these thematic truths about the world and its stories and the worlds are meant to engage the audience in every Dimension and make them feel that the world is this real Dynamic and immersive thing almost really the main character of the story even though we only see the world through the eyes of our main characters and then Oto crafts these games based on how much he loves exploring these living complex environments and that feeling of Adventure that comes from finding these odd little corners of a complicated world he thinks that the best way to do immersive environment design is to basically just build the environment top to bottom and then let the player loose on it and and focus on whatever they want and that's a promise that was essentially made with the original Legend of Zelda and then fulfilled with breath of the wild I would say free exploration in an open world basically carefully crafted to feel alive and immersive and you know obviously limitations of Technology limitations of the medium means that like original Zelda is like you're you're a little top down pixel guy good luck breath of the wild really felt like you were really exploring a world so judging by the way that these things almost synergize this is what I think happened I think there's a pretty clean flowchart of events that explains what went down of course we start with the incredible tide and Miyazaki gets a hold of it and he's like wow this book is neat but I really want to make the world feel alive you know I want the audience to be able to smell the Sea Air feel the early morning breezes immerse themselves in this post-apocalyptic and beautiful world and also it should be about the horrors of war and cool airplanes and the importance of living in harmony with nature and why military is bad uh and then the the Zelda team sees this and are like wow this anime is so goddamn immersive God I wish I could just freely explore it in some sort of interactive format wait and that's how we get Wind Waker that's what I think happened prove me wrong yeah no that that tracks I mean you you can definitely see a much stronger uh authorial intent behinds the adaptation of the incredible tide into uh Future Boy Conan and a a less strong authorial intent behind the Wind Waker where there is still a lot of of artistry and original ideas to that game and the entire hoist of making it playable similar to the entire hoist of making a book into a visual medium but you I think you see the the Fingerprints of Miyazaki much more strongly on Future Boy Conan mizaki is like oh this should be about the horrors of War whereas it seems with with the Wind Waker it's like this should be about future boy Conan and you you get the sense that they thematically they didn't bring as much to the adaptation besides let's put this in the context of the zeldor so we do kind of Mena narratively have a little bit of the sense of what this previous World used to look like and an interesting consequence of that is that maybe the player can sympathize with gorf a little bit because they understand what it means when link goes down into Hyrule castle and sees all this stuff like we understand the legends of the hero they're telling in the stained glass urals in the castle and stuff like that so there there is a benefit narratively and thematically that is brought to the story by putting it in the Zelda world and I don't want to Discount that at all but in terms of of the addition of theme to tell a bigger deeper story you see that much more strongly with the gibli movie than you do as a transformative work in Wind Waker where really the most important thing they did was turn it into a game as opposed to transforming the story into something new yeah I hope that's not too too scathing of a critique there no I mean I I think that's a very solid angle because one of the things I did want to bring up is that when you look at the the story beats of Wind Waker and you compare them to Future Boy Kon and you're like oh yeah yeah hm okay but the experience of it as a game is completely different than the experience of watching a 26 episode anime um and the fact that it is in the Zelda Universe which is at this point established also has an impact I mean the thing is that the villain of Future Boy Conan lepka is he sucks he's he's a very he's a nasty man uh he's not particularly interesting as a villain he doesn't have the same like Charisma or gravitas that even Musa from laata does but Ganondorf like Wind Waker Ganondorf was like the definitive Ganondorf for a really long time he had this gravitas he had a point uh he had really solid monologues like he's a much I think the Ocarina of Time fans might disagree but I I take your point I I take your point I is it not the same Ganondorf I keep forgetting um I mean in lore yeah but like everybody different different portrayals of the same character guess but the whole like that I coveted that wind I suppose like that kind of thing Ganondorf in Wind Waker is one of the coolest versions he's significantly cooler than the uh the bad guy in The Source material he's being adapted from he's got a lot more class he he doesn't have his like I can't believe this is happening third act breakdown when he has his third act breakdown it just makes him [ __ ] scarier and it's really solid and there's a lot of elements of of the gameplay and the story that are different simply because like you said we have context when we see Tetra become Zelda we're like oh sh this really do be a Zelda game why is she why why is she not tan anymore but it does like wow this really feels like something this feels like we're witnessing a history that we know about metan narratively and and poor link is just here like what what do you mean my world is the bad ending granted it is really cool to be able to sail on the Seas with the king of Red Lions and just kind of Bop around and that in itself is a very impressive Act of adaptation and translation yeah um so I I I don't want to make it seem like oh the Zelda team those those thieves they had no ideas at all I I don't want to I don't want to make it sound like that I think bringing back to the point I was I was making earlier where yeah two cakes uh where it's you can get a sense of like a this is plagiarism oh this is bad this is not not fun but I think for for me if I see some originality in there some new idea that's brought to the table I'm a lot more willing to overlook similarities to previous works even in the case of of Wind Waker and Future Boy Conan where it is very obvious um as long as I yeah as long as I see like okay what what did you bring that was not there before and then it's like okay there's the thing cool we're we're good we're broadly good but at the same time I don't even think we need to ignore the similarities because that almost feels disingenous it's like they're there we can all [ __ ] see them like they took the plot of Future Boy Conan and they put it in a video game there is a greater discussion about originality and what role it plays in art and how much it contributes to the worth and value of a work of art and again I think it all keeps coming back to that that little note in the interview you know it's when you're really able to do something revolutionary within a media that's existed for some time take something people have seen and try to do something new with it if we focus too much on originality you basically only get one of every kind of story but the fact of the matter is an audience that likes story a will also probably like story B very similar to story a and when it comes to the discussion of originality and inspiration versus plagiarism I think that like one of the things that came up a lot in the discussion of plagiarism that has been really Central this year is that plagiar is an is an act of disrespect uh it is an act of saying that idea was good but you're not worthy of it I will take it and everyone will know that it is mine because I'm worthy of it whereas taking creative inspiration from a work of art is almost the opposite sentiment it's that was so good and so moving that it is making me change the way I want to do art so that I can I can do something similar to what you did that worked on me and what's interesting is that when an act when when an artwork is inspired by another one it doesn't take the whole thing and it doesn't feel the same as the original so when Miyazaki adapted the incredible tide into Future Boy Conan he left a lot of things behind he was like I'm not interested in Conan being 17 I'm not interested in the world having only ended 5 years ago and everyone's still being hung up about it I want to tell a different story with this interesting setting that has kind of set the gears working in my brain and then you know a few years down the line he did the same thing with Castle in the Sky which has a lot of the same Staples of Future Boy Conan which is based on a setting in story that Miyazaki didn't come up with but with with Castle in the Sky he was like I can take the same Concepts I wanted to explore there and put them in this context and explore it more profoundly and more deeply in a much more Miyazaki is way I can I can add sad robots and [ __ ] like that I just think it's it's interesting because you can really feel the intent here like obviously like the CAG in the interview it's not a great look and like the fact that that that's Nintendo's look all the time so I don't want to be like coming down too harshly like they do this this is always how Nintendo operates I know it's just still you know it's this is this is a this is a level of drawing from The Source material that I would not be comfortable with without saying and we were strongly inspired by this story to the point of this functionally being a Zelda is adaptation of this anime like I would feel the need to own up to that were I the one in charge but I'm not the one in charge and they didn't and that's whatever but I I think that there is a profound difference in intent between your idea is good but you don't deserve it so I'm going to make it I'm going to say it louder and get the credit versus your idea is good and it really changed me and I want to tell a story that this made me think of and I think that there there's a very important distinction to draw between those things because I know like as an artist I know that the stress about originality is a very strong near Universal feeling like I want my ideas to be creative I don't want to I don't want to take things from other people you know I don't want to steal and that is a very reasonable thing to stress about but I think one of the really interesting things that you can get from unpacking something like this is that every story in this chain in this lineage is good in a completely different way they're all trying to do different things and Wind Waker was groundbreaking not because the plot was so original it was groundbreaking because holy [ __ ] sailing the Seas feels amazing you know slowly working your power up to slowly Reawakening the master sword going from this random fisherman boy to the actual Hero Of The Seas you know building yourself up Reawakening the sages until you're sword fighting the [ __ ] King of Evil at the bottom of the ocean like that is a a buildup of power escalation that is nowhere in Future Boy Conan Conan is a little super strong Goku boy the entire time he he doesn't really have much of an arc Beyond making friends yeah and Tetra is a very different character than Lana and uh you know she does get put on a little bit of a shelf when she gets Zelda ified but she's very much her own character before uh breath of the wild Zelda Tetra was probably the version where people were like she's got the most personality I really like her she's a lot of fun almost all the elements of of Future Boy Conan that are quote unquote borrowed for Wind Waker are element that are good writing and fun to explore from a sort of free form angle and like Yeah The Way It Ends is nearly identical that's not bad that ending was good it's a good ending and team Zelda was very upfront about the fact that they had a lot of Miyazaki fans in the audience they had a lot of anime fans in the audience in the in the studio you mean was it in the audience sorry sorry in the studio they they were in the audience of of uh studio jibli and they were in the studio makeing Zelda that looked a lot like Studio ji um I I think the the two cakes thing is absolutely it as much as I was saying like he you know the uh what did they they add or change to the story it's like look by adapting this into a video game you are already changing and creating so much that is new ends difference that it is 100% a two cake scenario like I can quibble like you know I wish they did a little a little more with a plot it's like okay yeah you know whatever it is really interesting that it fits into the Zelda lore and is recontextualized by all this other stuff that came before that we the player have context for but what I love about this this is that it gets to the feeling that I think most people wish they could have with their favorite media of being able to experience it again for the first time a really good adaptation lets you do that and if you love Future Boy Conan and then wi Waker comes out it's like oh my God it's like I'm watching it again for the first time because it is just familiar enough that it is the thing you love but it's new and different and you get to feel that this discovery and wonder all over again in the same way when I was watching Castle in the Sky it felt like I was playing tears of the Kingdom for the first time again because there were so many things that were similar so many things down to like the when they're on lapida and the piano music kicks and I'm like this is the breath of the Wild score this is the tears of the Kingdom music right here this little like little single ding ding kind of Piano Thing uh and I was like whoa it hit me like a truck uh when when I felt that yeah um so that's what I I I think is really cool about this it is very much a question of adaptation and if uh Wind Waker was another you know anime or like changing it from a series to a movie lot less favorable outcome I think uh and that's where it it starts to get dicey but in making the translation to a brand new medium there is so much that is brought in the line of what what mamodo was talking about with just put the player in the world turn them loose and they will feel what you want them to feel so long as you make the you know the requisite uh combination of of animation and art design and music and and game feel and stuff like that um I I think that it is a um an achievement for for what mamoto wanted to do and it would have been a lot less favorable if it wasn't a video game and was either another you know like lateral animated film or you know like back to a book like would not work in book form would have been like okay this is derivative what are you adding but I think the adaptation angle gives a lot of cover because there is so much that the translation from from movie to game affords in novelty and the feeling of being in that world I am sailing it is is so so strong that even if the plot is really freaking similar even if the Aesthetics are really freaking similar it's a completely different experience for the the viewer I guess viewer terms player so I don't want to be coming down on this too harshly just because I I am celebrating Miaki in studio gibl or I guess this is before gibl celebra Miyazaki for a work of transformative adaptation with a very strong authorial intent added on to it I don't want to take away from from what Nintendo is doing because as an adaptation it is so so impressive that it works at all let alone is some people's favorite Zelda game well that's why I think it's I'm really glad that you brought up the thing about like oh my God I can re-experience this thing again for the first time almost uh because that is exactly the experience I had by discovering there was a classic golden age jibli thing I'd never heard of and then watching it realizing this is just Castle in the Sky the prequel that's amazing like I I love Castle in the Sky it's probably my favorite movie ever and I love Nika and the thing is I love those movies so much and I have not loved any newer Jubilee movies as much as I've loved those because he's sort of moved away from the spef themes that really resonated with me that that I personally as an audience member really liked and that's completely fine you know what he's doing is is what he wants to do but for me that sort of cottage Corps post-apocalypse that that sort of Eco exploration of of a broken world but people forging new lives in them having fun adventures Castle in the Sky was so formative for me and learning that like hey we have more there's like a little bit more and you didn't know about it but it's from that era that you really liked and then basically learning oh and also the game that you haven't played but like know by reputation it's this like yeah I got two new things for the price of one and a three cakes yeah and a whole new perspective on this thing that I had never drawn the connection before and that's why I wanted to make this presentation not to be like jacu Zelda not the most original franchise in the world how D I genuinely think this is so interesting to unpack and I this is a very enriching thing for me to to do with stories that I like is to understand why they're like that what shaped them what what inspired them and in this specific case finding like hey we got more of that that jibi thing you like and also it shaped this thing that you already knew about but now you have a new angle to look at it from I love this I love this a lot like I I don't care how original something is I care about how good it is and these are both good and I I'm really glad to have have realized like oh they're distant cousins that's awesome well distant cousins you know not that distant but I do think even though we kind of framed the the the narrative progression of this from we knew about breath of the wild and tears of the kingdom and we just found out about Wind Waker I think there is kind of a a positive character growth uh at Nintendo where they've become a lot more comfortable with their relationship to other media and genuinely a good thing and I think the way that they they treated the the um The gibli Inspirations for for breath of the wild and then for for tears of the Kingdom I think is is is a lot healthier where it's like look we're not fooling anyone y'all know what's up and that's okay there's so much else that's in this game that is new and unique and different and that's a case of a very strong extra authorial intent by Nintendo that makes it tonally and thematically new and distinct again on top of the adaptation of Castle in the Sky but now you can play it have fun bopping around the sky islands I think there is a a very good little bit of character growth on the Nintendo side that we have seen in the last 20 years from this even though we kind of like narratively framed it in reverse because we we played this out in in Discovery order EXA I I think there is a positive uh outcome to this overall where we can just be like this all ended up working out great oh absolutely yeah what one of the things that I I thought was interesting when I was unpacking this is like they were a lot cier about this when it came to Wind Waker like and I understand why because if they had said we were drawing on this as inspiration people would have watched it and been like oh you weren't [ __ ] kidding whereas with with breath of the wild tears of the Kingdom it's like it's very clearly jibli inspired everyone can see it I don't know if they were like yeah we can tell but uh but they were upfront you know even back in 2002 about like were fans of of Miyazaki and Castle in the Sky and when they started doing Skyland we were like we been knew that you were into jibli we we knew it's nice that you're you're just really leaning into it cuz I was like God I love Castle in the Sky I wish there were more games like that so I could experience more of it and then they were like yeah we can do that for you and it's it's good but the thing is again looking down the chain the way that tears of the Kingdom adapted Castle in the Sky ideas is not my personal favorite I think that it's aesthetically absolutely gorgeous but one of the primary complaints about the sky islands and I had a whole detailed eyraa about like why this was good writing but like my personal preference I didn't think there was enough to do I didn't think there was enough to uncover up there uh because the stuff that I got out of Castle in the Sky is different than the stuff that team Zelda got out of Castle in the Sky so it inspired us in different ways the things that I would make derived from that would look very different than the things that they made derived from that so when I played through it I was like this is gorgeous this is like 90% of the way there but if I were doing it I would change a few things and that's how this chain continues that is how inspiration creates stories that resemble the earlier ones but are different in key ways because every art form every story impacts every member of the audience in a unique way and some of those audience members go on to create new things based on what that inspired them and a lot of the inspiration process is that was almost perfect but here's how I would do it and I think that's what we're looking at here they saw this show they were like almost perfect here's how I would do it and I I think that that is such an interesting loving creative process and it's very easy very easy to be like hey those two things look too similar that's not original like I I love noticing those patterns as you can tell from this entire slid show I love having that moment of like hey wait a second those are the same thing love connecting the dots love my conspiracy W but it's not a bad thing it is I I would say an inevitable thing of the artistic process you know if you strive for originality above all else you're going to be avoiding a lot of things that work and are done a lot because they work and I I do think it's a good thing that team Zelda has gotten a lot more comfortable about taking inspiration from things and a lot better I would say about taking sparse inspiration from a diverse set of things rather than just one thing but it's inspired by the Corpus of gibl work rather than here is a game adaptation of of this one movie it's it's a it's a much healthier again not that wind waker is bad but the way they handle it now is is broadly speaking a more creatively healthy long-term strategy uh-huh I agree and I I think this is a very fun little thing to notice and I I'm excited to see more because again I would love two cakes I love one cake two cakes even better yeah so I never know how to end these things I guess if we have any closing thoughts we can use this lovely backround strong little boy the the ultimate combination the true Smoking Gun connecting these two desperate stories uh amazing yeah I feel like you can just print this in the Hyrule Gazette Century after Century oh yeah absolutely they just get to they change the date on the newspaper and then they like yep Nation saved by strong little boy again um but yeah no I loved unpacking this uh in part because the initial investigative process was so rewarding cuz you know the first time I went through I was like is pretty similar and then I just kept noticing more things yeah yeah once you're tapped in and you're looking with the right uh analytical lens you see everything uhhuh and but it is also interesting seeing what things didn't make it in like there's a there's a little third character in the bottom right corner of the Future Boy Conan half of the slide uh and to my knowledge he's nowhere in Wind Waker that's like Conan's first friend he meets little goofball kind of a kind of a pig from Journey to the West archetype ends up raising pigs I don't think he has any parallel in Wind Waker cuz clearly the creators were like eh I can take Jimi or I can leave him we don't need him um which just I was like maybe he's Mar it's not mar mar is way too nice yeah so yeah I don't know I I love noticing things like this it's kind of like how if you read through Journey to the West you start noticing that like 30% of all anime has its roots in Journey to the West you're like that's why that guy uses a fan that shoots fire that's why that guy fights with a stick you know that kind of thing it just it keeps happening that's half the fun of exploring the classics in any Dimension is like oh wow this is just that amazing well I think that's all I've got to contribute I was putting all my uh my conclusion analytical eggs into that the basket of that last slide yeah no that that was really good um I think yeah I don't know I I'm really glad that that ji is having this influence because again I love ji but there's only like two of the movies where I'm like this is exactly what I wanted so the more people are like yes that's exactly what I wanted I I should make art like that is good for me because then I get more um yeah this kind of points back to the uh conclusion of the there will never be another Shadow of the Colossus where you know there will never be another Castle in the Sky but please keep trying we please dear God keep trying exactly I'm I'm very glad that you liked Castle in the Sky uh it was good I liked it I I liked that we didn't actually get much of the Castle in the Sky until the very end I like that each like quarter of the movie had a different like setting and and space that it was occupying yeah they they really buried the lead on lapan and I thought it was so cool I I rewatched it semi- recently in prep for the rolling with difficulty one shot Iran that was set in a sort of ji inspired uh game system again everyone's inspired by JBL it's great and I was so relieved that it's still just as good as I remember something that I like that much I sort of have to space out my rewatches so that I I don't you know I don't I don't ring it out but it's it's so solid it's always so interesting to see how it inspires people because of course it's not just as simple as like islands that fly you know a lot of things have islands that fly um but the narrative in Castle in the Sky that it constructs around it the general thing of like lapa is beautiful and now that it's been reclaimed by Nature it's it's actually kind of got it together but it was not working when it was separate from the earth um no the tone tone is a lot anyway yeah I'm I'm very glad you liked it cuz I'm always nervous when I'm like this thing was profoundly meaningful for me and shaped my entire worldview and someone's like yep uh three out of five stars it's like yes six out of 10 but you know I I I I don't know I I love this sort of thing I love this kind of analysis where you unpack like the similarities between things it's almost like that's like half of what I do on the channel and it's a rare treat when I get something this deep you know where where the connections run that far but it's it's always a treat for me and I I hope you guys liked this analysis uh if I missed specific little details in Wind Waker people in the audience who watched Future Boy Conan and played Wind Waker I I'm relying on your expertise so bye bye [Music] [Music]

Channel: Overly Sarcastic Productions

Views: 71,470

Keywords: Funny, Summary, OSP, Overly Sarcastic Productions, Analysis, Literary Analysis, Myths, Legends, Classics, Literature, Stories, Storytelling, History, Mythology

Id: q4hmTw_nXbs

Length: 67min 41sec (4061 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 12 2024