Name(s): Porco Rosso / Kurenai no Buta / The Scarlet Pig / 紅の豚 / Pòrco Rósso
Format: Movie
Studio(s): Studio Ghibli

Review

It’s Miyazaki! Again. Actually, this one is light-hearted even by Miyazaki standards. In most of his movies the villains seem like a threat at first, then reveal they aren’t so bad or whatever. In this one, even the pirates are incompetent goofballs. Porco Rosso has been said to be a Miyazaki movie focused on comedy, and it’s true it’s one of his funnier ones, but its shifts between standard drama and humor are sparse, and it’s rarely laugh out loud funny.

First things first, Porco Rosso is by far one of the better leads in a Miyazaki movie. Instead of being the usual strong-headed female (which still exists here because it’s a Miyazaki movie), it’s a male anthropomorphic pig, and he actually treads a good character archetype well: that is, the gruff and earnest exterior with a noble heart. The latter side never comes across as contrived, and despite being a pig he’s one of the most human Miyazaki characters.

A Pointless Pig

On the subject of realism, it’s neat how most of Porco Rosso could’ve taken place entirely in the real world, with a natural and historically accurate setting. Of course, never one to try anything that different, Miyazaki still shoehorns in an unnecessary fantasy element by making the main character a pig due to the effect of a curse that’s literally never explained.

Porco Rosso being a pig has absolutely zero relevance to the plot other than a few pig jokes, and not even clever ones at that. This is stupid in how pointless it is, as there’s never even any complications caused by his appearance because no women have any hang ups about wanting to fuck a pig man. He’s just a pig, and we’re supposed to accept it while it’s constantly referenced.

Piggin’ and Paddin’

It’s surprising how little actually happens in Porco Rosso. The entire plot can be summed up as such: pig gets shot down by a rival bounty hunter, pig repairs ship, pig gets rematch with bounty hunter. There’s no hint of deviation and the plot never goes in any other directions. There’s just padded-out scenes on the established road to doing all this where the characters can do silly things and talk about nothing.

There are only three characters that get much screen time, and while I’ve already mentioned Porco Rosso, I have to say I enjoyed the pompous yet charmingly harmless bounty hunter, Donald Curtis. Rounding off the main trio is the mechanic Fio Piccolo, who is like 90% of other Miyazaki girls so she’s completely forgettable.

Ghibli’s animation quality isn’t that impressive at this point in their history, so there’s no eye candy to draw attention away from a simple plot, so that’s unfortunate. The score is suitable but bland, as is the case with about half of their works. and nothing you’d want to hear outside of the movie.

Verdict

Porco Rosso certainly isn’t the worst Ghibli movie I’ve seen, though I’d still rank it near the bottom. I’ve already said before how there isn’t much cleverness about the studio’s movies outside of the art design, and in Porco Rosso, nothing is exemplary. It can be pretty funny at times, and there’s a more realistic human drama in it without the aid of much fantasy that I like to see, but it’s still just decent. It’s almost never dull thanks to the cool Porco Rosso himself, I’ll give it that much.