Is Takeshi Kitano a Ghibli Studio film fan?

[Michael E. Kerpan]

On Mon, 07 Aug 2000,  "Julien Seveon" <js97 at hotmail.com> wrote:

> Totoro and Grave of the Fireflies are well known, and that?s an euphemism, 
> by all Japanese. No doubt that Kitano have seen them (it will be pretty hard 
> today to find someone in Japan who hasn?t), but I?m not sure the scenes you 
> mention are objectively attended as references to Totoro. I'd rather say 
> that those are only simple similarities between both work.

If it was just one or two things, I would have written the similarities off as
coincidences.  But the magnitude of references is such that I suspect there is
some deliberate (playful) references.  On another list, someone pointed out that
Kitano has said that his plot was influenced by "3000 Leagues in Search of
Mother".  Unfortunately he apparently did not specify whether he wasreferring
to the animated show ( a pre-Ghibli Takahata-Miyazaki project) or the story this
was based on.

Michael Kerpan