The Secrets of Porco Rosso

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SCR190: Why does a war hero choose to live as a pig? Hayao Miyazaki’s Porco Rosso (1992) never answers directly — and that ambiguity is the point. Set among freelance seaplane bounty hunters in the interwar Adriatic Sea, the film follows Marco Pagot, a former WWI Italian fighter ace cursed — or self-cursed — into the body of an anthropomorphic pig now known as Porco Rosso.

Victor Lams, Jeff Haecker, and Patrick Mason break down what makes this one of Miyazaki’s most personal and underappreciated films. They examine the pig transformation as a symbol of survivor’s guilt: a man who flew while his friends died and calls himself a pig because he doesn’t believe he deserves to be human. The group draws a parallel to the Catholic experience of self-punishment — the sacrament of confession offers forgiveness, but we often refuse to accept it for ourselves.

Patrick Mason, an aerospace engineer, brings a technical eye to the aircraft designs. The unusual propeller-behind-the-pilot configuration shifts the center of mass and enables tighter maneuvers — at the cost of a faster stall. The trio also marvels at the pre-CGI craftsmanship: 250 animators, over 58,000 drawings, 476 distinct colors, and a production staff that leaned heavily on female animators — mirroring the all-female Piccolo workshop that rebuilds Porco’s plane in the film.

The conversation covers Donald Curtis, the swaggering American ace pilot who serves as Porco’s foil — a possible Howard Hughes analogue — and Fio Piccolo’s remarkable speech to the Mamma Aiuto air pirates, which defuses a standoff by appealing to their honor as seaplane pilots. The group also unpacks Porco’s code of honor in the dogfight: he won’t shoot the pilot, only the plane — a distinction only possible in the slow-speed biplane era. The film closes with its characteristic Ghibli ambiguity: Fio’s epilogue voiceover, a seaplane parked in a garden in daylight, and an ending that doesn’t need to say a word.

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This episode of The Secrets of Movies and TV Shows was edited by Patrick McCaffrey of Moon Shadow Studios. To have your own audio professionally edited by Moon Shadow Studios visit them at their web site MoonShadowStudios.biz.

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