Miyazaki’s world is comforting and challenging. It’s pastels and wonder, wrapped in time-bending melodies, with dream-like scenes and places you know just might be true, beyond the folds of your imagination. At the same time, it’s comical pigs flying airplanes, handsome wizards learning to love themselves, hopeful children saving their parents from curses, persistent princesses fighting to save their land and tired animators grappling with long and successful careers. On the third side of this impossible coin are morals for the modern day, lessons on planet conservation, what beauty means, understanding loss and hurt and the multifaceted complications of war. If you want it, Studio Ghibli has it.
Hayao Miyazaki began creating films in 1984, when the first Studio Ghibli film, “Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind,” was released in theaters. Over the next thirty years, Miyazaki, with co-animation director Isao Takahata and producer Toshio Suzuki, released some 24 films. The studio has won an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature for “Spirited Away” and “The Boy and the Heron,” as well as five additional Oscar nominations for “Howl’s Moving Castle,” “The Wind Rises,” “The Tale of The Princess Kaguya,” “When Marnie Was There” and “The Red Turtle.”
As much as audiences were captivated by these movies when they came out, they love them now more than ever. Every year from April to December, people flock to GhibliFest, a months-long event in which movie theaters across the United States dedicate screens to replaying Ghibli movies.
It only gets bigger, with more and more theaters adding GhibliFest to their schedules. But why? Why do these movies still get airtime on the silver screen? Why has Miyazaki and his team’s imagination gripped the attention of so many for three decades? What lasting impact is this, and why are we so pulled to it?
Perhaps it has to do with our inexplicable draw to the ordinary.
Or maybe we feel the call to something, answering questions we haven’t asked yet.
Or maybe they are just beautiful.
If we do keep watching them because they remind us of a simple life, that’s at least something we all can respect in a world that’s becoming increasingly complicated. Miyazaki himself explains that “It’s in everyday, ordinary scenery, where I discover the extraordinary.” His movies often include intentional scenes of seemingly nothing, frequently a view of nature that doesn’t advance the plot, describe the setting or develop a theme, but only shows natural beauty. These stories are simply-crafted, complicated marvels that can remind us of when we see creation and complication in our lives, and they can help shift our perspective to one of appreciation for them, rather than apathy or hatred.
Or maybe we catch onto the higher themes that Miyazaki weaves into his stories, those of cultural violence, of warfare, of creation care and of family tensions. The topics that Miyazaki covers affect everyone in some way. Maybe we latch onto these stories because we are told that we can rise above the challenges, that we can always fight for justice and that there is, and always will be, love in the world. Stories echo reality, and the movies Miyazaki makes are not the easiest to swallow, yet these are movies made for children. “Kids get it,” Miyazaki says, “They don’t operate on logic.” Perhaps that’s why we gravitate towards these films, so they can help solve our big adult problems with a child-like mindset.
If you don’t seem drawn to these movies because of the simple storytelling or the pertinent subject matter, you will at least stay for the visuals. These movies are beautiful, time and effort invested into the smallest details, rich colors and worlds believable for two hours. Elegant music accompanies each film, crafted specially by Joe Hisaishi for these stories. The characters are filled with virtue and love and act on it. If you have never seen a Ghibli hug, you are seriously missing out. Everything about these movies is touched with aesthetic charm, from the backgrounds to the food to the melodies to the characters, which might be why these movies still permeate our culture today.
No matter why people find Ghibli movies so enthralling, the lasting impact of this Studio’s stories cannot be understated. These movies are filled with wonder and questions, each one different from the last, and I hope they keep coming. “Even now, there are new ideas that he talks about,” Studio Ghibli vice president Junichi Nishioka says tells BBC Culture, referring to reports that Miyazaki has already started work on a new film. “He is not physically working on sketches based on these as of yet, but I don’t think he will ever be ready to retire. I don’t think he’s ever going to really let go. He will have a pencil in his hand until the very day that he dies.”
For me and many other Ghibli fans who love these movies for a multitude of reasons, that is music to our ears.
Written by contributor Emelia A. Conley.
Why do we love Ghibli? — Miyazaki’s legacy
Miyazaki’s world is comforting and challenging. It’s pastels and wonder, wrapped in time-bending melodies, with dream-like scenes and places you know just might be true, beyond the folds of your imagination. At the same time, it’s comical pigs flying airplanes, handsome wizards learning to love themselves, hopeful children saving their parents from curses, persistent princesses fighting to save their land and tired animators grappling with long and successful careers. On the third side of this impossible coin are morals for the modern day, lessons on planet conservation, what beauty means, understanding loss and hurt and the multifaceted complications of war. If you want it, Studio Ghibli has it.
Hayao Miyazaki began creating films in 1984, when the first Studio Ghibli film, “Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind,” was released in theaters. Over the next thirty years, Miyazaki, with co-animation director Isao Takahata and producer Toshio Suzuki, released some 24 films. The studio has won an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature for “Spirited Away” and “The Boy and the Heron,” as well as five additional Oscar nominations for “Howl’s Moving Castle,” “The Wind Rises,” “The Tale of The Princess Kaguya,” “When Marnie Was There” and “The Red Turtle.”
As much as audiences were captivated by these movies when they came out, they love them now more than ever. Every year from April to December, people flock to GhibliFest, a months-long event in which movie theaters across the United States dedicate screens to replaying Ghibli movies.
It only gets bigger, with more and more theaters adding GhibliFest to their schedules. But why? Why do these movies still get airtime on the silver screen? Why has Miyazaki and his team’s imagination gripped the attention of so many for three decades? What lasting impact is this, and why are we so pulled to it?
Perhaps it has to do with our inexplicable draw to the ordinary.
Or maybe we feel the call to something, answering questions we haven’t asked yet.
Or maybe they are just beautiful.
If we do keep watching them because they remind us of a simple life, that’s at least something we all can respect in a world that’s becoming increasingly complicated. Miyazaki himself explains that “It’s in everyday, ordinary scenery, where I discover the extraordinary.” His movies often include intentional scenes of seemingly nothing, frequently a view of nature that doesn’t advance the plot, describe the setting or develop a theme, but only shows natural beauty. These stories are simply-crafted, complicated marvels that can remind us of when we see creation and complication in our lives, and they can help shift our perspective to one of appreciation for them, rather than apathy or hatred.
Or maybe we catch onto the higher themes that Miyazaki weaves into his stories, those of cultural violence, of warfare, of creation care and of family tensions. The topics that Miyazaki covers affect everyone in some way. Maybe we latch onto these stories because we are told that we can rise above the challenges, that we can always fight for justice and that there is, and always will be, love in the world. Stories echo reality, and the movies Miyazaki makes are not the easiest to swallow, yet these are movies made for children. “Kids get it,” Miyazaki says, “They don’t operate on logic.” Perhaps that’s why we gravitate towards these films, so they can help solve our big adult problems with a child-like mindset.
If you don’t seem drawn to these movies because of the simple storytelling or the pertinent subject matter, you will at least stay for the visuals. These movies are beautiful, time and effort invested into the smallest details, rich colors and worlds believable for two hours. Elegant music accompanies each film, crafted specially by Joe Hisaishi for these stories. The characters are filled with virtue and love and act on it. If you have never seen a Ghibli hug, you are seriously missing out. Everything about these movies is touched with aesthetic charm, from the backgrounds to the food to the melodies to the characters, which might be why these movies still permeate our culture today.
No matter why people find Ghibli movies so enthralling, the lasting impact of this Studio’s stories cannot be understated. These movies are filled with wonder and questions, each one different from the last, and I hope they keep coming. “Even now, there are new ideas that he talks about,” Studio Ghibli vice president Junichi Nishioka says tells BBC Culture, referring to reports that Miyazaki has already started work on a new film. “He is not physically working on sketches based on these as of yet, but I don’t think he will ever be ready to retire. I don’t think he’s ever going to really let go. He will have a pencil in his hand until the very day that he dies.”
For me and many other Ghibli fans who love these movies for a multitude of reasons, that is music to our ears.
Written by contributor Emelia A. Conley.