By Lindsay Wong
Netflix has added 21 movies from legendary Japanese animation house Studio Ghibli since last year, just in time before lockdown. They were also subtitled in 28 languages and dubbed in 20!
The producer of Studio Ghibli, Toshio Suzuki, stated that this decision was made after receiving support from fans. Under Netflix’s acquisition, the films are available for streaming in Asia, Australia, New Zealand, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Americas. Unfortunately, Studio Ghibli does not have publishing rights for ‘Grave of the Fireflies’, so it will not be available on the platform.
Studio Ghibli has released 22 feature-length films since its establishment in 1985. Their films such as ‘Spirited Away’, ‘Princess Mononoke’ and ‘My Neighbor Totoro’ are considered legendary across the world and have generated a large fanbase. Famed director and one of Studio Ghibli’s founders, Hayao Miyazaki, was named one of Time’s most influential people in 2005. There is currently a Ghibli Museum in Mitaka (Tokyo) and an amusement park is in the works, scheduled to open in 2022 near Nagoya.
Netflix screening Ghibli films is a huge step for the animation studio to reach even larger audiences around the world. Every movie is considered a classic and nothing sounds better than movie nights to binge-watch all the Ghibli movies.
Here’s a rundown of the titles in case you aren’t familiar:
- Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984): a warrior princess tries to prevent two kingdoms from destroying the planet
- Laputa: Castle in the Sky (1986): a boy and a girl try to keep a magical crystal out of the hands of military agents while searching for a floating castle
- My Neighbor Totoro (1988): two sisters interacting with friendly wood spirits in their rural family home
- Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989): after moving to a new town, a young witch uses her flying abilities to make a living
- Only Yesterday (1991): a young woman travels to the rural countryside and reminisces about life
- Porco Rosso (1992): an Italian WWI ex-fighter ace, cursed with a pig face, lives as a bounty hunter chasing “air pirates” in the Adriatic Sea
- Ocean Waves (1993): a love triangle between two friends and a new transfer student
- Pom Poko (1994): a group of racoon foxes band together to fight the encroachment of the city into their natural habitat
- Whispers of the Heart (1995): a teen romance about a girl who dreams of being a novelist and the boy who wants to create violins
- Princess Mononoke (1997): a young prince finds himself in the middle of a struggle between forest gods and humans who try to consume its resources
- My Neighbors the Yamadas (1999): the various tales of a middle-class family in contemporary Japan
- Spirited Away (2001): a young girl visits an abandoned theme park and ends up in the underworld where she has to learn new skills to save herself
- The Cat Returns (2002): a girl saves a special cat’s life, and is repaid with a visit to a magical cat kingdom to be the bride of the cat prince
- Howl’s Moving Castle (2004): a powerful wizard takes a liking to a lonely young hatmaker, who was cursed to live as an old woman
- Tales From Earthsea (2006): a man and a young boy investigate mysterious happenings on a mythical island
- Ponyo (2008): a goldfish who wants to become a human girl finds and befriends a human boy
- The Borrower Arrietty (2010): a family of tiny people live secretly in the walls and floors of a sick boy’s household; he befriends one of them
- From Up on Poppy Hill (2011): a pair of students fight to prevent the school’s storied clubhouse, Quartier Latin from demolition
- The Wind Rises (2013): a fictionalised biopic of Jiro Horikoshi, designer of the WWII-era Mitsubishi Zero fighter aircraft
- The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (2013): a tiny princess grows into a young lady and confronts her fate
- When Marnie Was There (2014): a budding friendship between two girls as they uncover secrets together
