Parion wrote...
I'll admit the only Ghibli films I've seen completely are "Spirited Away" and "Howl's Moving Castle", but my point remains.
Graphicly, I find the environments unimaginative and passionless, the characters are just plain hideous.
O really? You think that? HAHAHAHAH! Don't make me laugh. Ghibli only has the MOST BEAUTIFUL backgrounds and environments and the most interesting and well-developed characters. Ghibli has won dozens of awards for their animations, so don't you dare say that the environments look unimaginative and passionless. Ghibli is one of the few anime studios that still draws their backgrounds the traditional way, with real paint on real canvas. Don't you DARE call that passionless.
Does this look unimaginative and passionless?

And you dare to say this is unimaginative and passionless?

And this?

Sorry, but your complete lack of taste in art is mind-boggeling.
Parion wrote...
On the writing side, I find the stories lackluster, largely pointless and ultimately boring, and most damningly the characters completely fail at establishing an emotional connection; I couldn't bring myself to care what happened to any of them.
There was no significant story progression, no character showed any real kind of growth, in part because there was no real conflict, no real villian to defeat or obstical to overcome, no philosophical conundrum to be explored.
Or at least it felt that way to me.
I think what your problem is that you didn't understand the messages of the Studio Ghibli movies. Studio Ghibli's scripts are one of the deepest most philosophical scripts in anime history.
Spirited Away was about growing up and valuing the things you have. You see Chihiro grow from a spoiled little child to a mature and smart little girl. The character development in Spirited Away is simply amazing.
Howl's Moving Castle follows a similar structure as Spirited Away, but in this case it's about a young woman who doesn't appreciate herself for who she is. She thinks she's ugly and boring. She has an incredibly low self-esteem. Nobody cares about her, or so she thinks. When Sophie gets cursed by the witch and becomes an old women, only then she starts to appreciate who she is/was. Sophie has a great personality and a kind heart and the young wizard Howl sees this. Howl sees Sophie for who she really is and loves her for who she is.
The funny and interesting thing about Howl's Moving Castle is that in the beginning, Sophie looks up to Howl and Howl tries to give her more self-esteem, but in the end. Howl seems to be unable to stop the war and Howl loses hope and his self-esteem drops. He turns into a monster but at that moment, it's Sophie who sees Howl for who he really is and she tries to give him his self-esteem back.
If you have only seen Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle, I advise you to watch
Grave of the Fireflies. That is my favorite anime from Ghibli. It's about WW2 in Japan and how bad it was in Japan during the time that America kept bombing Japan on a regular basis.
Parion wrote...
Assuming bioware writers, I'd much prefer that ME looked like this...
[image from Deus-Ex]
or this...
[image from Final Fantasy]
compared to this piece of liver...
[image from Ponyo]
Deux-Ex is great, nothing wrong with that.
Final Fantasy is cliché and boring. The characters aren't intersesting and look completely stupid with their insane j-pop haircuts, some male characters even look like females. Seriously, FF is gay.
And about Ponyo, I haven't seen that anime yet but the fact that it looks so different from what I've seen so far from Ghibli only shows that Ghibli isn't limited to 1 style and is actually able to use different styles.
So please, stop posting in this topic and go watch these Ghibli films first:
- Grave of the Fireflies
- Laputa Castle in the Sky
- Tales from Earthsea
Go watch
at least one of those 3 and after seeing it with an open mind, come back here and tell me what you thought about it.