![]() ![]() It doesn’t quite get there for me, suffering from a bloated running time and a sprawling plot that loses sight of the intimate details that make Ghibli’s best works so impactful. Princess Mononoke (1997, Miyazaki) is Studio Ghibli’s take on an Akira Kurosawa-style war epic.This is kind of a low-key movie in its scope, but I love it. The concept of rendering everyday objects at oversized scale is perfect for Ghibli’s obsessive attention to detail, and Arrietty herself is a great protagonist. ![]() Maybe it’s because I grew up on The Borrowers, which this is an adaptation of, but Yonebayashi’s directorial debut really captures the wonder and adventure of the studio’s best work, and composer Cécile Corbel turns in a wonderful European-influenced score. The Secret World of Arrietty (2010, Hiromasa Yonebayashi) flew under the radar a little, but it’s my favorite 21st-century Ghibli movie.It’s a good thing these guys kept on working together. The animation is clearly a little cruder than what was to follow, but this is still a visually iconic movie with one of the all-time great Joe Hisaishi scores. A stark post-apocalyptic sci-fi story about a princess battling against a kingdom whose warmongering threatens to destroy the world altogether, there’s really nothing else like Nausicaä. Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984, Miyazaki) was technically made before Studio Ghibli’s formation, but it tends to get included in Ghibli collections and is part of the HBO Max library, so I’m listing it here, too. ![]() It outstays its welcome slightly, but this is a must-see. Based on a Japanese folk tale, Kaguya employs a starkly minimalist art style with faded watercolors and harsh charcoal strokes that shift in precision with the tenor of the story.
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