Studio Ghibli Inc, is a Japanese animation company founded in 1985. It’s studio is located at Koganei, Tokyo. My husband and I are cartoon and anime lovers so when we watched My Neighbor Totoro which is a Ghibli Film, we were blown away and got addicted to all Ghibli movies we can find. My daughter is also happy with some of the cartoons so these films has been our family’s movie date night.

Here are the Ghibli Films I recommend:

1. My Neighbor Totoro

– released in April 16, 1988 and directed by Hayao Miyazaki. Totoro is the magical forest spirit that you see on the Ghibli logo.

Description: Two young girls, Satsuke and her younger sister Mei, move into a house in the country with their father to be closer to their hospitalized mother. Satsuke and Mei discover that the nearby forest is inhabited by magical creatures called Totoros (pronounced toe-toe-ro). They soon befriend these Totoros, and have several magical adventures.

 

 

 

 

 

2. Spirited Away

– won a Golden Bear and an Oscar for Best Animated Feature. This was released in 2001 and again directed by Hayao Miyazaki.

Description: In the middle of her family’s move to the suburbs, a sullen 10-year-old girl wanders into a world ruled by gods, witches, and monsters; where humans are changed into animals; and a bathhouse for these creatures.

 

 

 

 

 

 

3.  Howl’s Moving Castle 

Description: A love story between an 18-year-old girl named Sophie, cursed by a witch into an old woman’s body, and a magician named Howl. Under the curse, Sophie sets out to seek her fortune, which takes her to Howl’s strange moving castle. In the castle, Sophie meets Howl’s fire demon, named Calcifer. Seeing that she is under a curse, the demon makes a deal with Sophie–if she breaks the contract he is under with Howl, then Calcifer will lift the curse that Sophie is under, and she will return to her 18-year-old shape.

 

 

 

 

 

 

4. Whisper of the Heart

– Feel good love story. The characters don’t have magical characteristics but the effects are still as great as the other Ghibli films. The 14 year old lead girl writes about a novel called, The Cat Returns.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5. The Cat Returns

Description: After helping a cat, a young girl finds herself involuntarily engaged to a cat prince in a magical world where her only hope of freedom lies with a dapper cat statuette come to life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are still other Ghibli Films that we’ve watched and honestly, I could not decide which are my favorite because all of them are! There’s Kiki’s Delivery (Peaches’ fave for a time), Princess Mononoke, Ponyo, Porco Rosso, and Grave of the Fireflies (which is a cry-fest by the way!).  Your kids will surely love Totoro (I know because we do!). When we went to Beijing, we were able to score a Totoro mufflers that’s less than P100 and we were so happy!

In a not so distant future, we hope to visit the Ghibli Museum at Mitaka, Japan. THAT would be a dream come true for our family 🙂