From: conty@cbnewsl.cb.att.com (Vampire Hunter C)
Subject: Porco Rosso Synopsis, V 1.5.1
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 18:21:36 GMT

Saw this on the Miyazaki mailing list:

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KURENAI NO BUTA (PORCO ROSSO) Synopsis, Version 1.5.1 (August 20, 1992)
Synopsis by David Oakey, incorporating first-hand observations by
     Fukumoto Atsushi, Larry Greenfield, Jack Palevich, and Robert
     Woodhead.
Thanks to Enrique Conty, Fukumoto Atsushi, Larry Greenfield, and Jack
     Palevich for their advice, and to Steven Feldman for editorial help.
Please keep these headlines intact.

KURENAI NO BUTA (PORCO ROSSO)

[Major spoiler warning:  this synopsis is as thorough as possible at the
present time (and long: 8 pages single-spaced / 16 pages double-spaced).]

     The audience laughed several times during this movie, whereas I--
with only first-year Japanese skills--missed many of the jokes.  There
was plenty of physical comedy, though, so I laughed along with them some
of the time.

     The movie starts with the setting explained in many languages.  This
prologue is animated as twelve-or-so rows of little mice traveling in
unison left-to-right, accompanied by type-writer sound effects.  Each
mouse trails text in a different language.  There is one mouse 2/3rds of
the way down which travels right-to-left.  I think it's printing in
Arabic.  After each line of text is displayed, the mice pause for a short
time, then a typewriter-carriage-return sound is heard, and the mice
return to the left side and start printing more of the text.  And, at the
end of the synopsis, there are two or three mice which make an extra
pass, because the text description is longer in those languages than in
the other languages.  The screen fades to a beach lagoon scene.

_Open on the Adriatic Sea in the 1920s_

     Italian music is playing.  The pig's face is covered with an open
magazine as he relaxes on a beach by a lagoon.  His seaplane, a Savoia
S-2, is on the shore, and the small beach area is surrounded on all sides
by high cliff walls.  It's Porco's cozy hideaway, and he's got an old-
fashioned radio playing Italian music.  Later, we see some kids on a boat
who are big fans of Porco's.  The boat signals to Porco with semaphore
flags, flashing Morse code lights, and even lines of people on deck
forming an arrow.  They're telling Porco that air pirates in that
direction are kidnapping some kids.  Then we switch to a map showing
Porco flying one way and some other flyer heading a different way, then a
masked figure stealing a bag of money.  Porco's plane has a bit of an oil
leak as he heads in the direction indicated by all the signals on
boat.  Porco is popular with the ladies, based on all the waving and
such.
     Then we switch to a scene with the air pirates and their Dabohaze
sea plane that's painted with skulls.  They are known as the Manma Aiutto
gang.  The pirates kidnap a dozen or so little girls (Mei's age?) from a
cruise ship.  While loading the kids onto the pirates' plane, one of the
pirates says, "Let's go.  We have enough kids."  Another pirate replies,
"But I want to take them all."  After they take off, the girls get into
mischief all over the Skull Pirates' plane.  Porco flies up and the girls
wave to Porco.  The Skull Pirates try to fire at Porco, but the girls
bump the gunners to make them miss.  Porco signals to the Skull Pirates,
but they keep firing at him, so he shoots them down.  But still they
won't surrender, even when landed on the water, and the pirate chief--
known simply as "Boss" Manma Aiutto (who looks like Bluto from Popeye)--
tears one of the sea plane's guns from its turret and aims it at Porco.
So Porco swoops in for a final strafing run.  As he nears, "Boss's" big
37 millimeter gun doesn't work, so his comrades wave the white flag at
the last moment and Porco refrains from shooting.  The skull ships'
tail--with its skull painting--breaks clean off.  Then Porco rescues the
girls, who virtually commandeer his plane.  They even use it as a tugboat
for their swimming float, and stretch a clothes line between the two.
Later, we see a newspaper headline which says, in Italian, something like
"The Pig enjoys Motherhood."
     The scene shifts to a fancy nightclub.  The pirate gang is there.
They all have scars, and one even has an eye patch.  They all are
swooning over the lovely singer, Madame Gina.  Gina is singing in French,
and the whole nightclub loves her song.  A Kurotowa look-alike is there,
in a blue Lone Ranger outfit and a letter "C" on his belt buckle.  His
name is Donald Curtis, an American.  He likes Gina, too.  Porco arrives
at the Hotel Adriano and enters the nightclub while Gina is still
singing.  Two reporters come over to Porco and photograph him (flash
bulbs flashing) and try to interview him on the spot, but their loud
questions earn them the ire of Mr Curtis, who physically removes the
reporters so he can concentrate on Gina without noise.  Gina's music is
able to soothe even the savage hearts of the pirates.  Meanwhile, Mr.
Curtis and Porco talk.  Porco goes off to eat alone, but shortly Gina
sits and talks to him.  There's a photo of several pilots on the wall,
dated 1912.  One pilot's face has been scribbled out.  (It's Porco's face
as he appeared before he became pig headed.)  Mr. Curtis takes off in his
plane (marked with a big "C" on the tail) that night.
     The next day, Porco makes a trip to the bank.  He sees a military
parade (the Fascists are taking over Italy).  He goes to a gunsmith and
gets a new machine gun.
     Elsewhere, we see "Boss" and the pirates in a repaired seaplane
(with a different plane's tail on, instead of the skull-painted one)
flying with a lot of other colorfully/whimsically-painted planes.  "Boss"
shouts, "Urusai!" (shut up!) so often that it's his trademark phrase.
The colorful planes fly over a passenger ship that suddenly brings out
planes with folded-up wings on its deck.  They are the cruiser's guards.
Their wings unfold and they fly to meet the colorful planes.  Mr. Curtis
(who was hired to help the air-pirates union) is in this air battle.
     Cut to Porco, relaxing on the beach of his lagoon.  He is listening
to his radio when his music is interrupted by a news report including a
challenge from the air pirates, who have bags and bags of money.  Porco
gets in his sea plane and takes off through a natural archway in the
cliff wall surrounding his private lagoon.  He says something about going
on vacation in order to overhaul his engine and himself in Milan . . .
whilst seeing lots of pretty girls.
     Porco's plane rises through beautifully animated fog effects.  As he
rises above the clouds, he is met by Mr Curtis's plane.  We see subtle
propeller effects in a close up of Mr. Curtis's face, the subtlest of
which will probably not be visible on the small screen.  There's a cool
dogfight, which Porco loses when his engine fails and his plane falls
down through the clouds.  Mr Curtis descends and searches from the air
for Porco's wreckage amongst the tiny wooded islands that dot the area,
but sees nothing.  He lands his seaplane and finds a small chunk of
Porco's wooden plane floating in the water.  (Porco is hiding his ruined
plane under the branches of some trees on one of the isles.)
     We switch scenes again.  Gina's aboard a ship that's leaving the
dock near the Hotel Adriano when a porter runs on the dock and shouts
that's there's a phone call for her.  She jumps from the deck to the dock
(not a moment too soon) and takes the call.  It's Porco!  It's been two
days since the dog fight.  Apparently, it took Porco that long to get
back to civilization.  When she realizes that he could have been killed,
she shouts that he could have ended up as roast pork (and on his end of
the line, the phone's earpiece forms lips that shout at Porco ^_^).
     Next, we see Porco on the flatcar of a train with his wrecked plane
under a tarp.
     Elsewhere, we see a 17 year old Nausicaa look-alike named Fio at the
Piccolo S.P.A. warehouse.  (S.P.A. is Italian for "Inc." or "Co." or
"Ltd.")  Porco arrives and talks to a whiskered man whom Fio calls
"Gramps" (is his real name Pergo?).   When Fio is out of earshot, Porco
asks Mr. Whiskers if he really IS Fio's grandfather, to which "Gramps"
responds in a secretive manner, "Te dasuna yo!"  ("Don't lay your hands
on her!")
     Anyhow, "Gramps" takes Porco to the machine shop in the warehouse,
where we see a shiny new engine with "Ghibli" embossed on it in big
letters.  Porco bargains with "Gramps" over the cost of the new plane,
and he has to pay extra for living in the warehouse during the
construction--especially since he eats so much.  He is told that Fio is
going to design his plane.  He thinks that's an awful idea.
     Later, in the warehouse, "Gramps" is counting money.  Fio comes in.
She's quite talkative.  Porco takes the money and Fio says, "Wait!"  She
then says something like, "What's the first prerequisite as a pilot?
Experience?"
     Porco answers, "No, inspiration."
     "Fine.  I heard you were quite young when you flew for the first
time.  Right?" she demands.
     "1910.  I was seventeen."
     "Oh! the same age I am now," replies Fio.
     She gives Porco a blanket, and seems happy despite Porco's efforts
to give her the brush-off.
     Next morning, in the Piccolo S.P.A. warehouse, we find Fio is
designing a plane.  She's quite good at it . . . and she was up all night
working on it.  She's wearing earrings like Nausicaa's and has on a white
shirt with blue plaid.  Porco likes her design but he angrily says, "Only
one person?"  He's worried that she's going to make the plane all by
herself.  But Fio is happy anyway.
     A little later, school girls and ladies (who all furtively like
Porco) walk into the warehouse, ^DO passing Porco.  They are all from
Piccolo families.  (The men-folk had gone away to find jobs due to the
worldwide financial depression of the 1920's, so only women were
available to help.)  Then, old ladies walk by, and they openly show their
affection for Porco.  He maintains suave grace through it all.  The
women-folk set up tables, make spaghetti and prepare brunch.  Then,
except for Porco, they all pray.  Fio notices this and winks at him.
     In a shed next to the warehouse, "Gramps" and Porco test the new
engine.  With the pistons firing and the attention to detail on the
engine, one is impressed by the animation.  Porco, on the other hand, is
impressed at the blast of wind caused by the propeller.  The shed shakes
from the force of air.  Meanwhile--to the sound of jolly music--the
ladies help build a new plane for Porco all that day.  That night, we see
Fio at the drafting board, designing late into the evening.
     The next day, the wooden plane gets painted Italian Red.  Porco,
true gentleman that he is, kicks back and rocks a cradle while the ladies
work hard on his plane.  Again, Fio is up late designing.
     Elsewhere, we see Porco in a black and white movie theatre watching
a cartoon of an aerial dogfight.  The old filmstock is scratched.  The
cartoon looks like a tribute to old Max Fleischer cartoons, with a four-
armed bug version of Betty Boop and a Gertie the Dinosaur look-alike.
     A heavily-decorated Italian officer sits next to Porco in the
theatre and they talk.  He's an old friend of Porco's named Ferrarin.
Porco leaves the theatre, and walks along the city street until Fio pulls
up driving a big flatbed truck.  Porco takes over the driving.  Fio
notices that they are being followed by another car.  "Are you really a
spy?" asks Fio.  "Me?!  A spy?!" he asks in return.   Porco thinks that's
hilarious.  Realizing they are being followed, Porco makes an evasive
turnaround in the street to escape the following car.  It works, too.
Heh.
     Porco's new plane is finished.  Fio says she's going too, having
designed and built a co-pilot seat.  "You've gotta be kidding!" roars
Porco, but Fio just tells him to shush.  She says she has some request
("onegai shimasu") and Porco is mad, but Fio becomes happy.  Apparently,
Porco owes extra money for the plane, and Fio is going to be his partner
until he earns enough bounty hunting to pay the debts.
     The plane has a crank to start it, like on old cars.  The ladies
open the warehouse doors and out fly Fio and Porco.  There's a canal or
river running next to the Piccolo S.P.A. warehouse, and across the river
spies with guns open fire on Porco's new plane.  He returns fire and ends
up on the canal where he skims along the water rather than taking off.
The ladies wave him off.  He steers his seaplane like a speedboat down
the canal, under bridges, and even has to rise onto one pontoon to avoid
collision with an oncoming riverboat.  Finally, the plane takes off.  We
see a pretty sunrise.
     Another plane flies up to them.  It's Ferrarin.  Upon seeing Fio
with Porco, Ferrarin signals "Buta ni shinju," by sign language ("Pearls
before swine," or "What a waste").  Porco and Fio say thanks but when
he's gone, Porco grumbles about him.  They fly low over the countryside
landscape and then over the sea.
     Elsewhere, Mr. Curtis is at an island villa.  Gina is sitting alone
in an island gazebo and Mr. Curtis comes up and flirts with her.  He
tells her that he can make her a big movie star if she'll come back with
him to Hollywood.  This smoothie even hands her a letter of some sort.
She's cold to him and laughs at his offer.  Then Porco flies overhead,
doing aerial acrobatics, which causes Gina to recall a time from her
youth--riding in a plane with a much younger Porco who then had a human
face; she's riding an even older fashion plane with Marco Pagott
(Porco's real name) as the pilot.  In her memory, she asked Marco
something as he was steering.  As he looked over his shoulder to answer,
a gust of wind raised her dress and he saw her petticoats blown around
and he turned away, blushing.  The flashback ends, and it's clear that
Gina remembers the time fondly.
     Up on the plane, Porco asks Fio something, and as she turns to
answer, we can see both her face as Porco sees it, and a tiny version of
it that Porco would see if he looked through the spyglass mounted on the
front of the pilot's windshield.  Good attention to detail like that in
the animation made it a delight.
     Later, they land in the water for a gas fill-up.  Porco goes ashore
to a bar while a boy with cans of gas rows out to the plane and hand
pumps the gas into Porco's plane.  The boy seems impressed at Fio's looks
or surprised that a gal dares to fly with Porco.
     Shortly thereafter, they take off and land at an islet, and go into
a sea cave with the plane, which opens onto Porco's secret lagoon where
he goes to relax.  "Beautiful!" exclaims Fio.  Porco has a tent pitched
on the shore, but it appears to be inhabited . . . by the Skull Gang air
pirates.  The air pirates leap out of the tent and comically run down
their leaders in their effort to surround Porco with dozens of guns.
They spot Fio and they like her.  "Boss" says "temee" (which is a brutish
way of saying "YOU!") a lot in this scene.  The air pirates threaten
Porco's plane.
     Fio talks her way over to "Boss" because she could not tolerate the
plane which she designed getting broken.  She talks proudly to "Boss",
and the pirates like it . . . all except for "Boss."  The pirates then
threaten Porco, saying, "Mince the pig instead," and Fio shames them all
with words of her own.  "It's a shame that you Adriatic men needed help
from an American.  Porco returned to duel with Mr. Curtis," she says.
     Then, suddenly, someone laughs from high on the cliff wall.  It's
Mr. Curtis, who leaps from the wall and lands on his feet.  Mr. Curtis
walks over and flirts with Fio, actually going as far as asking her to
marry him!  She and Mr. Curtis talk, and he flips through a notebook
listing Porco's unpaid bills.  Essentially, Fio is claiming that the
pirates can't kill Porco until his bills are paid.  A deal is struck.
There will be a fight the next day between Curtis and Porco.  If Curtis
wins, he can marry Fio.  If Porco wins, Curtis will pay his debts.
     "Boss" announces, "The air-pirate union will manage this duel!" to
the Skull Gang, which leaves with Curtis.  This leaves Porco and Fio
alone by the lagoon again.  Fio is sad for some reason, but her
naturally-buoyant nature comes back.  She disrobes (partly) and swims.
Porco laughs.
     That evening, when Fio is in a sleeping bag, Porco inspects his
bullets.  While Fio is half asleep, his face looks human to her.  And
handsome.  But only for a moment.
    "Why are you a pig?" she asks.
    "Dunno," he answers.
    "So, may I kiss you?"
    "Huh?"
    "You know, in the fairy tale, the spell on a frog was broken by a
kiss from a princess."
     "Don't be silly.  Save it for a more important moment."
     "Then, tell me a story."

     Porco tells Fio a story of when he was a younger pilot in the
Italian army (the planes had red, white and green bullseye insignias).
His army fliers had a mass dogfight with the army planes with German
black cross insignias.  He got hurt and awoke in his cockpit rising in a
sea of milky clouds.  It was so peaceful, so high.  Other fliers rose
from the sea of clouds and ascended to a stream of thousands of other
planes.  They were Porco's dead comrades.  They didn't hear him as they
joined the stream of "downed" planes.   His cries were in vain.
     "...God?" asks Fio.  Porco brushes off the possibility.  Fio says
something to the effect that she likes him despite his gruff manner.  She
hops out of her sleeping bag and gives him a quick kiss on the cheek.
     The next day, we see a festive crowd on an islet.  Many people have
come by sailboat to see the duel, and Porco and Fio are there.  "Boss"
makes an announcement to the crowd and emphasizes his point by firing
machine-guns over the heads of the astonished crowd.  "Boss" pulls out a
sack of money and offers Fio a chair.  Apparently, there's going to be an
aerial duel between Porco and Mr. Curtis, and the winner gets the sack of
money.  A photographer is going to take a picture of the Skull Gang air
pirates, but "Boss" elbows the others out of the picture.  Many onlookers
place bets on Porco and Mr. Curtis.  Fio and "Boss" watch the fight via
binoculars and telescope.  "Boss" reveals some information to Fio, which
distresses her.
     "That pig won't shoot," he says.
     "Why?" asks Fio.
     "You see, Curtis is still moving actively, so, if the pig shoots
now, he might shoot the pilot, too.  He'll shoot the engine when Curtis
becomes tired.  What a disgusting pig."
     The dogfight pauses for a moment as the pilots fly side by side and
exchange words instead of bullets.  Curtis shouts, "Why don't you shoot?
Are you making a fool of me? . . . Ha!  I see!  Your gun was broken!" but
then Porco fires a short burst to show that his gun is in fact working.
     They fly low over the flotilla of spectators' boats, and their stray
bullets frighten the crowd and knock down the watch tower.
     Elsewhere, Gina hears something in Morse code on a secret telegraph
that she keeps hidden in a bookcase. . . . Gina is the spy!
     Meanwhile, the crowd is watching the ongoing dogfight.  High
accelerations cause the pilots' faces to ripple.  Then, suddenly, Porco
finds that pressing the trigger on his machine gun doesn't result in
firing anymore!  His gun has jammed.  Then, the same thing happens to Mr.
Curtis' guns, but in his case it's because he's out of bullets.  They fly
alongside each other and Mr. Curtis pulls a pistol and fires at Porco by
hand, but misses him.  Porco throws the plane's handcrank at Mr. Curtis
and hits him in the face.  They land in the water next to the islet where
the crowd is gathered.
     The crowd surges toward the shore.  Porco and Curtis have exited
their planes and their confrontation has turned into a fistfight in knee-
deep shore water.
     Gina gets in her plane (marked with a "G" on the tail) and takes
off.
     Back at the fistfight, the two pilots look pretty awful, with faces
that are beaten to a pulp.  It's a boxing match for endurance now, with a
clang on a frying pan to mark the end of rounds.  As the combatants tire,
it becomes a fight in slow motion.  Porco loses a round.  Gina comes in
for a landing at the islet where they are.  The fighters are so tired
now, with eyes almost swollen shut, that their punches miss entirely.
But as Gina's plane pulls up, they simultaneously knock each other out
and both sink into the water.  The referee starts to count.  Gina calls
to Porco who arises from the waves on the count of ten.  He won!  Gina
says to the crowd, "The festival is over now.  Italian forces are coming
to arrest you all," and everyone disperses.  "Boss" gives Fio the prize
money.
     Porco throws Fio on Gina's plane despite her protests.  Fio kisses
Porco, who gets knocked in the head by the plane's wing.  (Notice that
after the scene where Fio kisses Porco, his face is never shown on screen
again.)  Then, Mr. Curtis and Porco remember that the Italian Air Force
is coming to arrest them and so they, too,  head for their planes.
     Fio thinks about something while flying aboard Gina's plane.
     Cut to a more recent era.  The pirate gang characters are older.
They have retired on their gambling winnings and lounge around the Hotel
Adriano.  Donald Curtis is a movie star and director in Hollywood.  In
voice-over, Fio explains that Gina sold the island hotel to her.  Gina
went with Curtis to Hollywood, and her face is on a movie poster with
Curtis.  Curtis is wearing a cowboy hat and there is a dinosaur in the
background.
     Fio keeps building planes, and every year, spends the summer at the
hotel with Gina, waiting for Porco. . . .
     During the credits, there are sketches, and then--as in KIKI'S
DELIVERY SERVICE--one final animated scene . . . of a plane flying off
into the clouds.
     Fio says, "And after the fight, I never saw him again."

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