Mar 28, 2025
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Castle in the Sky (1986) The Wind Rises (2013) Spirited Away (2001) My Neighbor Totoro (1988) Princess Mononoke (1997) Kiki's Delivery Service (1989) The Boy and the Heron (2023) Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea (2008) When Marnie Was There (2014) Howl's Moving Castle (2004)
Three
Another really old drawing from 2019-20, but still love this vibe of melancholic freedom. Inspired after watching The Wind Rises
I truly feel like The Boy and The Heron is Miyazaki’s apology letter to his son Goro.
Not in a “your my precious son and I love you so much, here a movie to make you for my failures” kind of way
but in a “I’ve built this incredible empire and legacy that’s given magic to millions of people, and in that time you’ve lived in that same world, and so naturally it’s expected that you’d take it over in my place, but I know that you’ll never succeed me or that you’ll be able to recreate the magic. This magical world will die with me, this company will die with me, and that’s okay. You don’t have to be me.”
🌱🌧️🪨
Rain in Studio Ghibli films.
post
I now realize why I, and many others, envy the Ghibli girls – because of the one I don't envy: Anna Sasaki (the main character of When Marnie Was There).
In scenes that make us crave the Ghibli "lifestyle", for a lack of a better term, the characters are doing extremely mundane activities – something we, theoretically, could easily integrate into our lives. In fact, most of us already do. The top results on Pinterest for "Ghibli mood" are made up of studying, working, doing chores, eating, cooking or sleeping.
So why do we envy them? Now it's time to go back to Anna Sasaki. The third picture I used of her was in the beginning of the movie as she was drawing. On paper, she's doing a mundane activity in a Ghibli movie. It should count, right? But no one envies her. Because she, as opposed to the other Ghibli girls, isn't occupied by the activity she's performing.
She's occupied with concerns. She's not in the present, but inside her head – as most of us are. The instances where we feel envy are the ones where the characters are in reality, it's as simple as that. They're not thinking about all the other things they need to get done, or how they don't fit in, or about that one awkward moment from 3 years ago. They're doing one singular activity, and that's it. They're trurly at peace.
We envy that.
oh, and how its beauty can bring tears to your eyes. So incandescently.