Miyazaki movies and my daughters

I saw my first Miyazaki movie in high school. I think it was in freshman homeroom class, when Mrs. H decided it would be fun to watch one of Miyazaki movies "Nausicaa." My family was never a big movie watcher, and watching movie was refreshing experience. To add to that, I know this is sort of disgrace that I had not watched most of Miyazaki movies until my 20's.

Years later from my first Miyazaki movie experience, now I own most of his movies in DVD. It must be like Disney movies to American families, but what a joy to share those movies with my daughters. Miyazaki's movies have deep messages in the stories, yet simply enjoyable to any generations.

My favorite to watch with my daughters are Ponyo and Totoro, the cute stories and nothing really violent in them. Spirited away and Mononoke are also wonderful, but I will wait to show Mononoke to my daughters until they are a little older.

Recently, I realized that "Little H" has been repeating the lines from Ponyo. She says "Ponyo, Sosuke Suki!" (Ponyo likes Sosuke!), and "Ponyo, Ningen ni Naru!" (Ponyo will become human.) Though this is just repeating words, it is impressive for her who is speech delay to talk in sentences. She now sleeps with a Ponyo plush toy.