It's not all about giant battling robots with underaged-girl pilot filling, white panties under short school skirts, and androgynous demon men who seek to remove the aforementioned garments from the aforementioned pilots.

On February 22nd, Disney and Buena Vista Home Entertainment, in conjunction with the legendary Studio Ghibli, will be giving the first American release to three of Ghibli's films. Hardcore anime fans, the kind who probably don't question Shinji grabbing his clone-mother's freshly showered breast and kinda holding onto it for a minute, have probably seen some or all of these films in Chinese or Japanese DVD releases, either legal or illegal. No one is immune to the inexorable draw of buying things from a foreign eBay seller who employs broken English and a DVD burner. We're all rubes, us geeks. These hardcore anime fans probably haven't, however, seen the intelligently voice-acted English versions, or seen the ridiculously extensive Japanese Behind-the-Scenes featurettes.

All of these three films, 'The Cat Returns', and 'Porco Rosso' and 'Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind', come in attractive, slipcased, 2-DVD sets, two of which are explored lovingly below.

While not a Miyazaki or Takahata film, it maintains the same Ghibli charm and intelligence that's earned them such a vaulted position in that unusual realm of animation studios. The director behind this particular film, Hiroyuki Morita, was hand-picked by the two chief directors, to very impressive results. That typical lush, warm green comfort of Ghibli's aesthetics, the ideal pacing and excellent sense of humor. And characters that you want to take home with you.

I planned on putting this film on in the background while I painted pop surrealist jellyfish-skulls or something, but I wound up completely absorbed in the deep visuals, and a storyline that moves very delicately from something completely and absurdly innocent into something very subtly dark and nefarious. Once you see cats being thrown out of tower windows by their mad king, you start to see the creepier aspects of the film... and that's when you're really hooked. The quality of the film is pretty much beyond commentary, so I think the important thing to discuss are the things that we'll be getting in the US release.

While not really promoted as much as the film itself, the vocal talent in this particular film stars the cute Anne Hathaway and not-as-attractive-to-me-'cause-I-like-women-too-much Cary Elwes. Anne's voice struck me as maybe a bit too adult for the character that was being depicted, but I'm also used to teensy Japanese voices being attached to Japanese female characters, so I could be biased. Besides these stars, who provide the necessary Hollywood boost to the title, there's a geek-fest of lesser voices that no one's really mentioned. Andy Richter as a toadying servant to the Cat King, (although the part of the servant was actually played by a woman in the original Japanese version), who effects a Wallace Shawn / Kevin Meany type of voice that you wouldn't identify as him were it not for the credits. Instantly recognizable is Peter Boyle, who plays a huge, gruff white cat excellently and with charming insulted indifference. Also not too obvious is Tim Curry as the Cat King, a sort of calm, hep, jazzy, mangy feline who freaks out at smaller and smaller provocations as the film progresses. Finally, and briefly, the beloved Rene Auberjonois as another servant to the Cat King. Bless you, Constable Odo.

Accompanying all of these English voice actors is a 'Behind the Microphone' featurette, and let me admit, I totally get off on seeing these things that reveal the faces of the voice actors behind the characters. If I had some kind of memorable voice and wasn't terminally congested, I'd give it all up to be a voice actor for any cartoon they threw at me... though I'd probably be typecast as the well-spoken but oft sarcastic and slightly goofy struggling artist, but there's a serious lack of such characters in cartoons. That or the eclectic entomologist that the army consults when they find out that the alien invaders have the same physiology as the common Lungworm and need some answers NOW, because the fate of the world rests on my shoulders. I'd totally rock them.

"The secret to their destruction lies in the third flanknum of their lesser thorax, but whatever you do, don't shoot the fourth one!"
"But why, Professor Arlington?"
"Because.... [zoom in]... you'll detonate their nuclear hearts. And you don't want to be around when that happens."

Intense, man. So, aside from these US features, the disc comes with a very extensive documentary about the creation of The Cat Returns, from the original short film that inspired it and following it until the theatrical release. Interviews with Miyazaki and Takahara, the illustrator who created the original graphic novel, voice actors, and everything down to a re-enactment of the dinner scene at which Takahara asked the director of 'Cat' to direct. They describe the scent of mushroom soup wafting into the room, man. They leave out the stuff that one usually sees in a US-made behind-the-scenes featurette, where they shove budget and computer technology down your throat until you're coughing up microchips and nickels, and they focus on the artistry and the artists and idiosyncrasies. THIS I can appreciate.

These things, including the original trailers, are on disc one, which gives you the excellent option of watching the original Japanese soundtrack with subtitles, for the purists out there. The contents of disc two are the movie again, but shown entirely in storyboard format over the English soundtrack. All 500 pages of loose pencil drawings, 4 or 5 drawings per page. I got through about a minute of this before I decided to save it for some other time when paint was drying and I needed something very slightly less interesting to watch. Wonderfully fascinating if you're into theatre and animation, but not so great as entertainment.

The Cat Returns resonates with me as something I'd watch again, and possibly share with a cute girl to quietly reveal my sensitive side to her. The chief concern in the importation of these Japanese films is always the quality of the voice acting, and without knowing the original soundtrack and therefore being unbiased, I completely failed to notice any awkwardness. Very much a film that I dig.

Porco Rosso is a complete about-face from the total storybook whimsy of 'Cat'. With a flourish of porcine charm and an unsettlingly subtle story, I'm going to tell you, the reading audience, that I totally get it. Sure I do. Man becomes ham, proves nobility, may or may not de-ham by end of film. That old chestnut. Pretty self explanatory. A ridiculously complicated exaggeration of the phrase 'when pigs fly'. Me, I'd have drawn a little fat pig with some bat wings or something and taped it to the back of my door to bask in its cleverness. Miyazaki, however, kicks my stick-figure ass and sets off million-dollar neutron bombs of creativity.

At first, while watching Porco Rosso immediately after 'Cat', I was put off by the slow, apparently aimless storyline. Whereas I'm more accustomed to a type of simple television animation where every animated frame furthers the plot somehow, here was this story where significant portions of the action we just normal, everyday things which did nothing for the story itself. This is the part where I have to switch my perceptions from 'traditional' to 'emotional', because Porco Rosso is anything but traditional, and therein lies the beauty of it. It's not plodding, but instead, very human. I mean, sure, Miyazaki is a master at making animation seem wonderfully human. This is HUMAN human. You and me human, except you're probably far less piggish than Porco and I.

Porco is a slow, gruff, heart-o-gold bounty hunter who somehow was cursed to look like a pig. He goes around dogfighting pirates and breaking hearts despite this handicap, and eventually, after much of the film has passed with various plane repairs and no real, solid sub-plot or clear explanation of his affliction to speak of, Porco fights a climactic sky battle with a brash American pilot, because, well, that's how they do things in the sky. The end.

There's lots of guns and a bit of light cursing, romance, smoking, and a graphic fist fight or three. This is certainly not kid stuff, and I'm inclined to think that children would be outright BORED with it. It's like Miyazaki's saying, 'Psst, grown-ups. I got something here for ya.' Or maybe it's Disney just passing along the sentiment, which is far more common in Japan than stateside, since the good ol' U S of A doesn't take its animation or comics or any form of illustration too seriously. If someone isn't inserting a Bolivian Inferno Centipede into their ear for the chance to win a million bucks, who cares?

You can't help but like Porco, (voiced by a low, quiet Michael Keaton), who proceeds through his life not actively seeking redemption, but just being a good person anyhow. You also can't help but like the sky pirates, who aren't nefariously evil, just bumblingly greedy, and all completely cowed by the presence of a classy lady. The head pirate, a Bluto-looking guy voiced by Brad Garrett, (whom you'd recognize vocally from 'Everybody Loves Raymond', and a million cartoon shows including Project Geeker, where he was that dinosaur guy, which no one remembers but me anyhow), and the couple of love interests spread throughout the tale are pretty peripheral to that main theme of human regret and redemption, but they're all part of that slow, human world that Miyazaki has created in the wharfs and Mediterranean inlets of Porco's world.

The 2-disc set itself includes many of the same types of features as the previously reviewed set. On the first disc, we get the expertly dubbed English version, as well as the Japanese audio with subtitles, should one play that purist card again. We also get a very similar 'Behind the Microphone' featurette. meeting the various voice actors and actresses for the Disney version, which include Cary Elwes again, and a short, odd interview with one of Miyazaki's co-creators, in Japanese, which seems to be this strange attempt to unveil the mystique of Miyazaki, as if he's some being of pure energy which cannot be communicated with via Earthly means and can only be coaxed into non-transience with offerings of emeralds and Legos.

The second disc, also much like 'Cat', is the English soundtrack shown over a progression of storyboards. While I can't help but think that all of the data space left over after all of the audio and image were put on the disc could have been put to further uses, there's still another 2-disc set left to go which they're probably saving the real gold for.

Porco Rosso is one of those films that you have to let marinate after watching before it achieves full potency. While I really liked 'Cat', and in fact watched it twice so that my niece might see it too, I'd like to see Porco Rosso again also. Maybe I missed something on the first go-round, some crucial subtlety that would explain more about who Porco really is, but I'm guessing that the intent of the film was to let the audience inside the mysterious character of Porco just as much as the other people passing through his life get to see him, and that particular choice of aesthetic presentation left a strong impression.