Im sure that you must have heard this studio’s name before. If not, then you’re about to be introduced to the holy grail of animated films. I will be talking about the movies storyline in a nutshell and why I like them so much. You are about to be introduced to all of my favorite movies made by Studio Ghibli.
Warning! There will be spoilers for the Studio Ghibli movies: My Neighbour Totoro, Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle, Kiki’s Delivery Service, Princess Monoke and Castle In The Sky. It also has spoilers for the movie Children Who Chase Lost Voices. I really do recommend these movies so if you decide to watch these spoiler free. Do go watch them first!!
Future me speaking, this is EXTREMELY LONG.
Also, there won’t be many pictures as I don’t wanna risk copyright lmao
How my love for Studio Ghibli started.
I think at the start of May it was. My mother came up with the idea of Friday Movie Nights. Every Friday at night time after dinner, we would gather around the living room table and bring some lays and other snacks and watch a movie. Have some fun after work or school in the case of kids. I highly recommend that you do this too, it was so much fun and great for family bonding at least once every week. Gather around the tv and enjoy a good ol’ movie. Since then, the tradition has been going strong.
So, the first, 2nd and 3rd week, we watched some normal movies. Secret life of pets 2, Wish Dragon ( I enjoyed this one best of the 3 ) and some movie which I hated to death. Forgot what the name was but I wouldn’t recommend it anyways. On the 4th week, I was having trouble choosing a movie. We narrowed it down to 2 movies, one of which happened to be what started my addiction to Studio Ghibli. We picked that movie and said to ourselves, “welp, it can’t be much worse than last week, probably won’t be as good as wish dragon tho”. Little did we know, I was about to be introduced to my 2nd favourite Studio Ghibli movie to date.
My Neighbour Totoro. The start of it all. Icon of Studio Ghibli
Im pretty sure at least one of you reading this have already heard of the movie, considering how well-known it actually is. But honestly, I didn’t even know what Studio Ghibli was before this. When we started this movie, we were pretty confused, Studio Ghibli has a thing for thrusting us straight into the story, which in hindsight is good for getting people hooked into the movie at the start. As the movie progressed, I was more and more amazed at the phenomenal animation, it was one of the best I’ve seen!
The movie had already introduced us to some characters and that it was definitely a magical world, considering the talking dust mites. The characters had great personality with the younger sister Mei, being more of a baby and very cute and curious, while the older sister Satsuki, being very protective of her. From what I was thinking, the movie was pretty cool so far!
Then the scene came, Satsuki had left for school and Mei and her dad were at home when she saw something. A tiny white animal scurrying across the grass. After a while, we were also introduced to a slightly bigger blue animal. After a chase, Mei fell down a Alice In Wonderland rabbit hole onto a grey blob of fur, this was Totoro
Totoro was so cute and fluffy that my sister almost died of cuteness, Totoro is such a lovable character and deserving to be the mascot of Studio Ghibli itself.
All in all, this movie was a masterpiece, the soundtrack, The Path Of The Wind, blew me away. It was so magical and mysterious that I couldn’t help but love it! Totoro as fore mentioned is such a lovable and memorable character that you will always remember. Despite My Neighbour Totoro being mostly all over the place except for the final part where Mei went missing, I found it to be the best piece of media I’ve ever watched!! There were also some many scenes that I remember 2 months after I watched it. Mainly Mei and Satsuki’s dream and the famous bus stop scene. Amazing
Spirited Away. Worthy of the Oscar
After watching My Neighbour Totoro, I searched up Studio Ghibli and found out that one of their movies, Spirited Away, won a freaking Oscar!!!! Obviously, that was our next choice for movie night
Spirited Away is worthy of that Oscar, the movie’s theme is about ghosts and spirits living in a bathhouse at night time in a small town that Chihiro’s family , the main character, gets stuck in after her mom and dad eat some food which they didn’t pay for and turn into pigs. She then meets Haku and gets a job at the bathhouse run by Yubaba, she also meets a spirit called No-Face, the Totoro of the movie. She then lives in the bathhouse as she tries to help her parents.
Despite it being not very high on my list of best Studio Ghibli movies, as I liked others better for some reason. It still doesn’t take away the fact that the Oscar it won was very much deserved! It is an amazing movie with a structured storyline and great animation, especially the scene where No-Face and Chihiro were on the train and the landscape was solely water, it was some amazing animation!
Howl’s Moving Castle. Outstanding Landscape animation
Howl’s Moving Castle was the next movie we watched, it was ranked highly on some of the Best Studio Ghibli Movies lists we searched up. ( This for example: https://ew.com/movies/ranking-studio-ghibli-films/ ) So we decided to watch this one. Off the bat, the animation was already stellar and the storyline was also pretty mysterious. I won’t say much about the storyline for this one but in a nutshell…..
The main character, Sophie, works in a hat shop and is attacked by a witch named The Witch Of The Waste, she is turned into a old lady as she tries to find a way to reverse her spell. She meets the cartoonish character Turnip Head as she climbs a mountain to find a way to break the curse. She is then met with a breathtaking sight. Howl’s Moving Castle, a castle seemingly made out of trash. The story gets complicated with morals, time travel and war which I won’t cover but is very very interesting!
Now, the selling point for me on this movie is the landscape. As Howl’s Moving Castle traverses through many different landscapes, the animation is breathtaking. They once stopped near a river with snow-capped mountains in the backround. Studio Ghibli has a animating style which I like to interpret at pastel landscape. Everything in the background is painted like pastel to make a nice background for us to admire. As always, Studio Ghibli’s animation is always amazing!
Detour.
Children Who Chase Lost Voices. Similar animation, different story
Now, we were planning to watch another Studio Ghibli movie when we stumbled upon this. It looked very alike to Studio Ghibli as their animation style seemed pretty similar. However, it was directed by Makoto Shinkai instead of Hayao Miyazaki, the director of most of Studio Ghibli films. We decided to give this a shot anyways and I don’t regret our decision
Warning ⚠️, this movie might be kinda depressing depending on who you ask. So if you are sensitive to topics about death… Maybe steer clear, just in case.
So, this movie is also confusing for some people maybe, but basically, the main character, Asuna, is attacked by a huge bear creature thingy. A person, Shun, came to help fight it off. After Asuna helps Shun heal his wounds, he tells her she is from a place called Agartha. After a few days of adventure and Shuns death. Asuna finds out from her teacher, Morizaki, that there are gods called Quetzacoatl which guard a way to revive people inside Agartha. Basically, Morizaki wants to revive his dead wife Lisa as he can’t bear with her death. This story tells of Asuna and Morizaki’s journey in Agartha. A lot more happened but it gets confusing fast!
What I like about this movie is it’s morals and of course the amazing animation yet again. First of all, this story teaching us something, to not hold on to loss and grief. Yeah.. it’s pretty damn deep. In the end, Morizaki fails to revive Lisa when he tries to take Asuna as a sacrifice when Shin, Shuns brother, saves Asuna, Morizaki then learns that he has to move on without Lisa. Deep. Also, the animation of Agartha is stunning, everything inside makes it seem like a fairytale land ruled by gods, which is true. The movie is breathtaking and very sad. Admittedly, I cried a lot. But the movie is still amazing, as always!
Kiki’s Delivery Service. Happy after sad
So, after the depressing movie… We decided to move on to a Studio Ghibli movie which seemed to be more cheerful. Kiki’s Delivery Service! This one has a way simpler storyline and a cheerful mood all the way through. This was a nice relaxed movie without anything to crazy going on.
Kiki’s Delivery Service is all about the main character Kiki, who after 13, needs to learn to be independent and goes to a new city with her pet cat Jiji. She meets a nice lady who works in a bakery who allows her to stay there and help around, she starts her service there and makes many different friends. The story is about the many people she meets and troubles she overcomes. In the end, her new best friend ( I guess ), Tombo, gets stuck in a airship which crashes into a clock tower, at that point, Kiki was at an all time low as her magic broom broke and she lost her powers. However, at the last moment, she borrows a broom from a cleaner, and flies up to save Tombo in an epic climax
This movie was one of my favourites as it was heartwarming and very relaxing, Kiki is an amazing character with a lot of personality as she learns to be independent and we follow where story, there aren’t any epic battles or crazy climaxes. It was a laid back movie and I found it leaving me happy at the end!
Princess Mononoke. PSA about climate change coupled with a good storyline overall
Princess Mononoke was no. 1 on a lot of the ranking lists we saw. So, we decided to give it a shot. This movies moral is very present in the movie. Climate change. From what I’ve heard of, Hayao Miyazaki is an environmentalist and cares a lot about the environment and climate change, as shown in this movie. This movie in my opinion was one of the best too, it has a great moral coupled with a great story to tell. Let’s jump in.
At the start of the movie, Ashitaka, a prince of a small town, is attacked by a boar-shaped demon, he is cursed and there is a purple injury on his arm, sometimes this makes him stronger, once even decapitating a samurai with a bow! This story is about how he sets out to find a cure and meets Princess Mononoke, a daughter of wolves. He also finds out about a town named Irontown, which has been polluting the forest. Princess Mononoke and pretty much the entire forest wants them gone as Irontown tries to get rid of them forever by hunting the forest spirit. This results in a war where Ashitaka wants peace on both sides. When the forest spirits head is decapitated in the final battle, he turns into a monster which destroys Irontown. In the end, Irontown ruler pledges to build a better town without pollution
Overall, I liked this movie a lot too! All of the Studio Ghibli movies have always found a way to top the last no matter what it is and I don’t know why!! Everytime I watch a new movie, I keep saying, there’s no way it gets better. BUT IT DOES!!! This is why this Studio is so amazing to me, all of it’s movies have won awards and I don’t see why not. All of their movies are phenomenal and I don’t think that anything else can top these movies. Hayao Miyazaki is a masterpiece.
Now, back to the rating. I think this movie hits home becuz the moral is very evident in the story and I think that it’s great. Our world right now is going through pretty much what’s going on in the movie, excluding the talking animals and giant forest spirit. The movie talks about climate change and the cutting down of forests and pollution and I feel like that’s great. Everything else was of course on par, the animation, the amazing storytelling, the memorable characters, everything was great and I can see why people love this movie best.
Castle In The Sky. The humans ruin it again
After Princess Monoke and all of the previous movies, I thought this one would be hard to top the others. I already knew that it would probably meet expectations, heck even pass them. But this was around 6-9 on most people’s list, so i wasn’t expecting much. However, I would enjoy this movie all the same.
The movies main character, Sheeta, or Lucita as we later learn, is from an floating wonderland called Laputa. We aren’t told this information straight away. She is captured by the army and is in an airship as they want to get to Laputa for it’s hidden treasures. Pirates invade and Sheeta is forced to flee. She floats safely onto the ground and is found by a miner called Pazu. This movie follows Sheeta as she befriends Pazu and is chased by the army and the pirates. They both want to get to Laputa for the treasure. Sheeta is eventually saved by the pirates, whom Pazu and Sheeta befriend. However, the crystal had already shown where Laputa is and both parties start rushing towards the island. Pazu and Sheeta land first, but the pirates get captured by the army. Eventually, Pazu frees the pirates and the army loot the place as Sheeta is captured by an “FBI agent” who has motives to use Laputa as a weapon. We later learn that he is also from Laputa. Sheeta and Pazu reunite as they cast a destruction spell to leave only the roots and the city of Laputa standing. Pazu and Sheeta leave for home along with the pirates.
All in all, I think this movie has a great storyline as always and the animation of Laputa before and after the destruction spell is also stunning. This movies soundtrack also rivals My Neighbour Totoro as all 3 soundtracks are mysterious and magical at the same time. This movie happens to top my list!
My list, my opinion of the best Studio Ghibli films.
No.1: Castle in the Sky. Amazing animation, great storyline, equally great soundtrack
No.2: My Neighbour Totoro: lovable and memorable characters, moving story, best soundtrack, breathtaking scenes, characters with lots of personality
No.3: Princess Monoke: Best Moral, nice story, lovable characters
No. 4: Kiki’s Delivery Service: Very heartwarming, Makes me feel happy, nice ending
No.5: Spirited Away: Memorable Characters, Nice storyline
No.6: Howl’s Moving Castle: Breathtaking animation, nice story, memorable characters
Why I love Studio Ghibli so much
I don’t know what’s there not to love, every single movie has breathtaking animation no matter what landscape you’re in, characters that you will remember months after watching the movie, stories are all moving and happy go lucky, morals are all so good. Studio Ghibli always has a thing for ending the movie in 15 minutes. When Kiki woke up on the day where she had to save Tombo, there was 20 minutes left on the clock. When Mei went missing 25 I think. However, they always pull it off.
Needless to say, the past 6 fridays I’ve spent watching these movies were amazing. I am telling you, if you plan on doing movie nights, please watch these movies, you won’t regret it. We still have a few more to go actually, I plan on watching Arietty, Ponyo and Porco Roso next. I don’t plan on stopping until I watch them all.
Studio Ghibli is an amazing studio which produces some of the best movies I’ve seen. I hope you take my suggestion and try watching it! If you need more persuasion, here you go!https://www.indiewire.com/2019/06/pixar-vs-studio-ghibli-best-movies-1202150553/
I have created a part 2 following all the other movies I watched. Go check it out!