How Studio Ghibli Has Inspired a New Generation of Artists (2024)

Dec 26, 2023 3:00PM

Spirited Away is more than just a film; it’s a memory etched into the minds of a generation. Released in Japan in 2001 and in the U.S. in 2002, this Studio Ghibli masterpiece enchanted audiences with its breathtaking visuals and an idiosyncratic approach to animation. Spirited Away’s triumph at the Oscars in 2003, where it won Best Animated Feature, is what propelled Studio Ghibli to global recognition. Today, Hayao Miyazaki, the studio’s founder, is a household name—beloved by movie lovers, animators, and artists alike.

The release of The Boy and The Heron—thought to be Miyazaki’s final project—in the U.S. on December 8th has not only captivated new audiences but also reemphasized Ghibli’s nearly four-decade legacy, beginning with its first film, Castle in the Sky (1986). With his magical and relatable style, rich color palette, and attention to detail in both backgrounds and characters, Miyazaki’s influence has only become more evident over the years.

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In an interview, Helen McCarthy, author of Hayao Miyazaki: Master of Japanese Animation, noted Miyazaki’s influence on a diverse range of contemporary artists. “Western artists [have been] inspired by Ghibli work in ceramics, video, theater, and music as well as painting and graphics,” she explained. For example, Alex Anderson’s ceramics infuse inanimate objects with human characteristics, echoing Studio Ghibli’s tendency to animate the everyday. And freewheeling performance artist Monster Chetwynd included a “cat bus,” a concept taken directly from Ghibli’s My Neighbor Totoro, in her 2010 performance piece Spartacus Chetwynd, A Tax Haven Run By Women.

Another artist singled out by McCarthy was Julien Ceccaldi, whose comic Solito (2018) includes references from Ghibli films such as Howl’s Moving Castle and Porco Rosso. “I’m very inspired by the melancholy of Porco Rosso, best exemplified by [Madame] Gina’s old French song about fleeting youthful love and the bittersweet scars it leaves,” Ceccaldi told Artsy, referring to an iconic moment in the film. “A moment in this comic is also inspired by Howl’s Moving Castle, where war is ubiquitous even though it mostly happens off-camera. I hoped to replicate this feeling of commonplace dread when it’s revealed a handsome prince has to take a break from brunch to lead a deathly war against an adjacent country.”

Japanese Pop artist Takashi Murakami has noted the influence of Ghibli on his art and production methods. His workshop, Hiropon Factory, later incorporated as Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd., is modeled off of the atelier system, also used by Ghibli animators. The artist’s style prioritizes the cheerful and fantastical themes prominent in Ghibli films. Inspired by Miyazaki and Ghibli’s films, Murakami also came to the conclusion that he wanted to articulate “what Japan is” in his own work, leading him to the concept of Superflat. The artist told Artsy: “Even when they were no blockbusters, the level of perfection and originality of [Miyazaki’s] work were absolutely tremendous.”

“When I was a senior in high school, Hayao Miyazaki appeared before my eyes with a bang,” Murakami told Artsy, speaking about the penultimate episode, “The End of Industria,” of the animated television series Future Boy Conan. “I was so surprised that the depth of reality explored in this work was completely different from those in Japanese, foreign, and Disney animations I had seen until then…I was deeply inspired by the ambition of Miyazaki and his colleagues to seek the authenticity in animation.”

Miyazaki’s widespread influence on contemporary art was the subject of a 2018 pop-up exhibition titled “Miyazaki in Los Angeles,” hosted by Spoke Art in Santa Monica, California. This three-day event, intended as a tribute to the filmmaker, featured over 130 artists, each bringing their own interpretation of Miyazaki’s work.

Among the contributors to the exhibition were artists working with media that had little to do with animation, such as contemporary artist Pippa Dyrlaga, who works with intricate paper-cutting techniques. In fact, her paper-cut work The Sky Gardener (2018) is a direct reference to Miyazaki’s movie Castle in the Sky. However, in an interview, she explained that the “special magic” of Ghibli films has influenced her entire practice. For her, all of Miyazaki’s films emphasized “the wonder of nature and the importance of living in harmony with it, rather than exploiting and destroying.…As an artist that is so inspired by the natural world, that’s something that I constantly strive to capture in my own work.”

Other artists who directly cite Miyazaki as an influence on their work include Hiroka Yamashita, whose paintings interweave dreamlike scenes with the tangible world. She noted that Miyazaki brought to life settings from her upbringing in Japan. “Looking back, the things that have influenced me since I was little are the works of Hayao Miyazaki and the stories my grandmother told me about events that occurred in the village where I was born and raised,” Yamashita told Artsy in an interview earlier this year. “Each of them exists in a world where the boundary between life and death is exceedingly ambiguous, a world that can invalidate the restrictions of time, space, language, and human senses.”

“Miyazaki’s films give equal importance to the setting, making it a character in itself,” said American landscape painter Jeffrey Beauchamp in an interview with Artsy. He noted Miyazaki’s ability to evoke a sense of nostalgia—though the director prefers not to use that word in relation to his work—not just in adults but in children as well. Beauchamp’s landscapes, such as If Zero is an Even Number I Guess You Got Even When You Left Me With Nothing (2012), are inspired by the rich and “operatic” backdrops of Ghibli films, he said.

While their artistic styles may differ, Beauchamp acknowledges the impact of Miyazaki’s work on his own, particularly noting “his celebration of the humble and the quiet as part of a heroic journey and his vision of magic among the everyday.”

Part of the reason for the widening influence of Studio Ghibli’s films is their distribution to new, international audiences. “I’m seeing an awful lot of people doing things in a Miyazaki style now, in a way that has really grown from the grassroots up,” Rayna Denison, a professor in film and digital art at the University of Bristol, said. “I assume [the style] will start making its way through the industry pretty quickly now because there’s a whole generation now that has grown up with Ghibli on its streaming platforms and on DVD. So as that group comes of age, we’ll see more Ghibli-esque [art].”

As more artists interact with these stories, the enduring legacy of Ghibli is likely to shape the artistic landscape for years to come.