WP3: Growing Up With Studio Ghibli
Having lived in Japan for my whole life, I grew up watching the renowned Studio Ghibli films. Ever since I was in elementary school, I was mesmerized by the films’ attention to detail through hand-drawn animations, which in effect makes everything more relatable and raw. The beautiful scenes of nature — in combination with supernatural or fantastical characters — make the visuals ethereal.
Although some of the movies capture well-known areas, others depict a variety of peaceful suburban neighborhoods and mountain towns that are foreign to most of the world, yet culturally rich. This choice can be attributed to the fact that Hayao Miyazaki — the co-founder of Ghibli — traveled around a lot when he was younger, and turned to regions all over the world for inspiration. Through his profound storytelling abilities, passion for animation, and the creation of his own universe, Hayao is able to represent the natural world “not only as a physical environment but as something living by its own will,” (MacWilliams 250).
One major artistic technique Ghibli films utilize that I tried to incorporate in my WP2 is “ma,” or a sense of peacefulness conveyed through a lack of action; specifically, “pillow shots,” or “a cutaway, for no obvious narrative reason, to a visual element, often a landscape or an empty room, that is held for a significant time (five or six seconds),” (Hellerman). These moments allow the viewer to absorb the plot of the story and prepare them for what is to come. They also bring attention to the diegetic sounds in the film, whether that is the summer breeze, the steady rhythm of train tracks, or peaceful nightfall.
When I was younger, I viewed these moments in Ghibli films simply as fillers; however, now I am able to appreciate the beauty of silence in cinema. In my WP2 specifically, I believe that these poetic moments were able to capture the bittersweet realization that childhood is coming to an end. As mentioned in my video, my transition from high school in Tokyo to college in Los Angeles made me reflect on the people and places that I call home. Although I was very overwhelmed to move to the United States especially with family troubles back in Japan, I believe that I gained the courage to tackle the unfamiliar.
There are three coming-of-age Ghibli films that have shaped my worldview and that I resonate with: Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro, and Grave of the Fireflies. In all of the movies, I am brought to the conclusion that although growing up is inevitable, gaining emotional maturity and independence is only possible through experiencing new, often daunting challenges.
Spirited Away (2002) illustrates a Japanese girl, Chihiro. On their way to their new home, Chihiro’s family gets lost and decides to explore the area that they found themselves in. There is an abandoned amusement park. While Chihiro’s parents go eat, Chihiro explores the amusement park and runs into Haku (a deity) at a bathhouse nearby. He tells her that her parents are in danger. When Chihiro returns to her parents, she finds that they have transformed into pigs. She also sees that the park is home to many demons and evil spirits.
In the center of the “town” is a bathhouse where these creatures go to relax. The owner of the bathhouse is the evil witch Yubaba, who is intent on keeping all trespassers as captive workers, including Chihiro. Yubaba “takes away” all of her workers’ names. In order for Chihiro to free her parents, she has to work for Yubaba and also remember her own name. Additionally, Haku tells Chihiro that if she doesn’t have a job, Yubaba will turn her into an animal or a spirit. Throughout the film, we can see Chihiro having to explore unknown territory and work under her oppressor until she eventually gets her parents back. At the end, the movie returns to the scene where the family is driving to their new home as if nothing had happened.
Just like all of the other Ghibli films, the storyline is far from realistic; nevertheless, it depicts real-life themes and obstacles. Through seemingly formidable creatures, the movie emphasizes the blurred line between good and evil. More specifically, all of the characteristics in the movie — whether they seem downright “good” or “evil” — have a mix of good and bad intentions, reflecting the complexities of human nature, and how appearances can be deceiving.
For instance, the main supernatural figure in Spirited Away is called No-Face. As his name entails, he lacks an identity, personality, and physical form. In one of the scenes at Chihiro’s workplace, No-Face starts to consume people and food, acquiring the behavioral traits of those he eats. He also demands a bath at Chihiro’s workplace and throws out unlimited gold to the workers in return. This is how he tries to gain people’s attention and fulfill his desire for connection and deeper relationships. As such, No-Face’s behaviors could be seen “as a symbolic parallel to Chihiro’s own need to feed her loneliness” as she navigates through an unknown world, and becomes skeptical about everyone’s underlying intentions (Delgado).
Although the plot does not have much relatability, Chihiro and No-Face’s anxieties pertaining to isolation and abandonment are heavily evident in childhood. Prior to attaining a solid sense of selfhood as an adult, we subconsciously worry about being judged, abandoned, or mistreated by those who take care of us. It is likely that as young children, we expected our caretaker(s) to be reliable, loving, and trustworthy. Personally, my core years of childhood were spent mainly with my mother, and I know that I had a strong fear of being neglected, even though she displayed forms of love and affection regularly. This is especially because I was depending on her all of the time, and I didn’t really know of a world beyond what my mother chose to present to me. Not growing up with siblings or another parental figure also made me feel like I didn’t have an alternative support system. Just like many others, once I was in high school I gained much more confidence in taking care of myself and expressing my own opinions. Chihiro undergoes the same sort of growth through her adventures in the spirit world because she feels self-empowered after she completes all of her arduous tasks alone, which results in the family reuniting.
My Neighbor Totoro (1988) is also a movie that revolves around children exploring unknown territory, leading to more autonomy in their childhoods. Siblings Satsuki and Mei move to a new house near the countryside, closer to a hospital where their mother resides due to illness. As Mei explores the garden outside of their new house, she stumbles upon Totoro, a “pear-shaped, pointy-eared creature endowed with magical powers,” (Heiter). Satsuki meets Totoro on a rainy day when the siblings are waiting for a bus. Totoro gives Satsuki a leaf-wrapped package of acorns and hops in a bus-shaped cat. She plants them and the siblings join Totoro (and other smaller Totoros) in their dance to help the acorns grow. This is when the siblings start to find comfort in their new home.
One afternoon, Mei and Satsuki find out that their mother’s return date from the hospital is postponed because her medical treatment got set to a later date. As a result, Satsuki cries, worried that her mother could die. Mei decides to go to the hospital on her own to give her mother an ear of corn, and the whole neighborhood is worried because Mei goes missing. With Totoro’s (and the cat bus’) help, Satsuki is able to find Mei, who got lost on her way to the hospital. In the end credits, the viewer can see Mei and Satsuki playing with other children happily as their mother returns. Totoro watches them from afar in relief.
Satsuki and Mei’s inquisitive attitude to explore the enigmatic forest made me feel nostalgia for my own childhood when I would learn more about the world through every thrilling attempt to step foot on unfamiliar ground. Although Totoro had no lines in the film, he “is able to enchant and excite the two sisters, delivering joy and wonder at moments wherein stress and anxiety might normally threaten children,” (Fujiki 154). Totoro gives the sisters a chance to laugh at their fears, find fantasy within the sadness that they feel for their mother, and encourages them to embrace change despite their worries.
I resonate with part of the movie’s storyline because my mother was hospitalized with an illness when I was in middle school, and she did her best to shield me from the terrible reality of her physical state. Similar to my parents’ divorce when I was much younger, I was never able to actually tell how sour or bad conditions were until later on in my life. These experiences made me think about how my character would’ve been different if I was more exposed to everything that my parents chose to not show me. Thus, My Neighbor Totoro reminds me that whether it is through sugarcoated sentences or simply not saying anything at all, caregivers often shelter children in a false reality because they don’t want them to experience traumatic feelings.
Even though it is a form of parental love, in some instances I do wonder if telling children the hard truth is better than saying a pleasant lie. How does a caregiver find the balance between being honest to their children and not giving them traumatic experiences? How do we differentiate between truths that strengthen a child’s mind, to truths that can harm their mental health in the long run? These are some questions that I now take away after reflecting on this movie.
Unlike Satsuki and Mei, siblings Seita and Setsuko in Grave of the Fireflies (1988) were faced with a traumatizing event — World War Two — without sources of security. They are located in Kobe prefecture in Japan during the Second World War. Growing up, Seita aspired to join the military like his father and was very prideful of his nation; however, he begins to doubt his own faithfulness as the siblings’ mother dies from a B-29 bombing and their father from a sunken ship. Although their relatives were welcoming at the beginning of the war, some of them begin to turn on Seita and Setsuko as resources become scarce and their overall quality of life worsens.
As a result of their parents’ deaths, Seita and Setsuko navigate their now-demolished neighborhood on their own. The movie brings the viewers through their town, plastering the screen with crumbled buildings and innocent civilians sprawled on the streets. There is a noteworthy scene in the middle of the film where Seita and Setsuko use fireflies in nature as their source of light. Setsuko is heartbroken the next day when she realizes how short-lived fireflies are, which could also be metaphorical to the citizens — specifically children — whose lives were cut short in the war. The scene also foreshadows the fact that Setsuko passes away from malnourishment shortly after. Seita is heartbroken from her death and comes to a deeper realization that his patriotism made him blind to Setsuko’s grave health conditions. Nevertheless, Seita also passes away near the end of the film for similar reasons. In the final scene of Grave of the Fireflies, we are left with a view of healthy Seita and Setsuko surrounded by fireflies and the Kobe landscape.
What makes Grave of the Fireflies even more emotional is that it crosses the boundaries of animation into real life. The movie was based on the experiences of Japanese author Akiyuki Nosaka, who was “separated from his family during a bombing raid and was the only caretaker of his sixteen-month-old stepsister, who eventually perished from malnutrition under his care,” (Goldberg 40). Therefore, the film is considered to be an apology to his stepsister.
After watching the movie as a middle schooler, I was curious to learn more about my grandfather’s experiences with World War Two because I hadn’t asked him about it. During an emotional conversation, I learned that he had to evacuate to a different prefecture with his family, and had to live in random apartments and temples in order to survive. His family members became malnourished, and his older sister passed away in his arms. I still remember feeling heartbroken after hearing about his story. To this day, I could never imagine what it would be like to endure something so atrocious and gruesome, especially as a child. I also admired my grandfather for being able to recover from the war, maintain a respectable work ethic, and attend the most prestigious university in Tokyo later on in life.
After talking with him, Grave of the Fireflies carried another layer of emotion and reminds me of my roots every time I watch it. The movie also reminds me that — as tragic as it sounds, love is sometimes not enough — and the weight of loss can be overpowering. Although I have been privileged enough to not experience the dangers of war, I am reminded of the loss of my own family members during childhood and just how traumatic these events can be.
After we lose important people in our lives, we can get stuck in our grief and be guilty for years about “not being able to help them” as much as we wished to. We sometimes wonder why we are the ones who remain alive when the people we have lost seem to have done nothing wrong. We may have intense flashbacks to moments where we felt either immense pain or love for the people we lost. I respect Hayao for being unafraid to depict such heartbreaking, yet realistic moments of loss in Grave of the Fireflies without glamorizing the scene too much.
I would like to think that Studio Ghibli movies can be relatable to anyone who has ever been an adolescent. Studio Ghibli understands the struggles of the “awkward” years, where developing children are caught between societal expectations and personal desires. Children of these ages attempt to identify what they want in life while evaluating whether or not their goals are “socially acceptable.” Older adolescents begin to feel a bit more practical and restrained. They tend to be hesitant about displaying certain emotions out of fear of what others would think of them.
The artful mix of fantasy and realism depicted in the Ghibli movies can be a metaphor for when children start to realize that not all of their dreams can be achievable and that the world is a lot more complex than they imagined. As an aspiring filmmaker, I look up to Hayao’s artistry and his ability to gently teach audiences of all ages about the realities of tragic events such as war and the importance of human connection.
Like other emotional films that pull on our heartstrings, Studio Ghibli leads us to subconsciously create links between the movies and our lives, as well as the struggles we have faced (Thagard). They allow me to reflect deeply on who I was raised by, how I was raised, and the major life events which make up my current identity. Every time I rewatch one of them, I take away deeper meanings and powerful metaphors that I looked past previously. Through a heightened emotional resonance, I believe that a larger audience can see these Ghibli films not only as a form of poetry or ode to childhood but as works of applied philosophy and ultimately, guides to life.
Works Cited
Delgado, Mariana. “On Hayao Miyazaki’s ‘Spirited Away’ and the Anxieties of Growing up.” Collider, 12 Aug. 2021, https://collider.com/spirited-away-themes-symbolism-explained/.
Fujiki, Kosuke. “My Neighbor Totoro: The Healing of Nature, the Nature of Healing.” Resilience: A Journal of the Environmental Humanities, vol. 2 no. 3, 2015, p. 152–157. Project MUSE muse.jhu.edu/article/614508.
Goldberg, Wendy. “Transcending the Victim’s History: Takahata Isao’s Grave of the Fireflies.” Mechademia, vol. 4, 2009, p. 39–52. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/mec.0.0030.
Heiter, Celeste. “Film Review: My Neighbor Totoro (Tonari Ni Totoro).” ThingsAsian, Global Directions, Inc., 19 Jan. 2002, http://thingsasian.com/story/film-review-my-neighbor-totoro-tonari-ni-totoro.
Hellerman, Jason. “Why Would Ozu Cut to a Vase at the End of This Scene?” No Film School,10 Nov. 2020, https://nofilmschool.com/ozu-vase#:~:text=A%20pillow%20shot%20is%20a,scene%20or%20during%20a%20scene.
Macwilliams, Mark W. Japanese Visual Culture: Explorations in the World of Manga and Anime. Armonk, N.Y: M.E. Sharpe, 2008. Print.
Thagard, Paul. “Empathy in Literature and Film.” Psychology Today, May 2017, https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/hot-thought/201705/empathy-in-literature-and-film.
