To Live in a Studio Ghibli Movie

The phrase “romanticizing life” is thrown around quite a lot these days, but it’s really quite an arbitrary idea. It entails structuring your life in a way that emphasizes beauty, passion, and aesthetics—quite a vague description, but fortunately one that allows room for interpretation. When most people imagine an “aesthetic lifestyle”, the first thing that comes to mind is Studio Ghibli. Watching Kiki’s Delivery Service, My Neighbor Totoro, and Spirited Away, one can dream of living in a world so bright and magical with its nostalgic melodies, fantastical characters, and gorgeous backdrops. Yet we can also bring these movies to life by making small changes in our lifestyles. 

Romanticizing life can be a great way to avoid burn-out in such a competitive academic environment. As our student lives are consumed with grades, extracurriculars, and worries about the future, it’s important to find some sort of intrinsic motivation—an internal passion that drives us forward, completely separate from the external pressures that may drag us through life. We can learn this from the characters in the beloved Studio Ghibli movies, who live their lives freely and colorfully.

Embrace the Beauty of Nature

Hayao Miyazaki is known for embedding themes of environmentalism in many of the Studio Ghibli movies. Ponyo depicts the effects of humanity’s activities on marine life, while Princess Mononoke emphasizes the importance of protecting nature and the creatures that inhabit it. While some movies explicitly share a message of appreciating nature, most Studio Ghibli movies illustrate the beauty of the environment simply through its beautiful natural settings and the ways in which characters interact with them. Whether it be with the main cast of My Neighbor Totoro traversing the thickets that Totoro calls home or Chihiro from Spirited Away sailing across the calm, blue waters of the spirit realm, nature is depicted so beautifully—luckily, we have the same environment in our reality. Take some time out of your day to bike along Han River, take a walk through the cherry blossom trees in mid-March, or even just leave your computer for a breath of fresh air. Spending time in nature can instill a sense of peace in our lives.

Appreciate the Small Things

What’s beautiful about Studio Ghibli movies is the amount of detail put into each and every frame—what’s more impressive is that every frame is hand-drawn. Every one of the 1415 hand-drawn frames in Spirited Away was drawn that way for a reason. From the unique clothes of the frog spirits in the spa, to the signs in the spirit market street, to the flowing fur on the dragon Haku’s, the small, yet abundant details in Spirited Away are what give the animated movie life. In our life, we should also start appreciating the small details of the world. Did you know that the red-crowned crane on the 500 won coin representing the leap of South Korea’s economy? Or that velcro works with tiny hooks and loops? Or how intricately beautiful the web of a Joro spider is? Looking at the bigger picture is great, but appreciating the tiny details can make life on this planet infinitely more interesting.

Decorate Every Nook and Cranny

One of the reasons the world of Ghibli is so loved is its settings. What would one give to live in Sophie’s hat shop from Howl’s Moving Castle, or Kiki’s plant-ful house in Kiki’s Delivery Service? These locations are popular for how decorated they are from top to bottom with flowers, plants, hats, dolls, books, and food. There’s so much character in these settings that makes one want to live in them. We can do the same by decorating our lives with things we love. You can start simply by decorating your laptop case with stickers or hanging a keychain on your bag. Then you can transition into buying flower pots or figurines to cover your desk, or putting up posters and drawings on your walls. While it’s impossible to live in the Studio Ghibli universe, you can make your own version of it right in your house.

Fill Your Life With Music

Everybody listens to music, yet Studio Ghibli music has its own charm to it. If you listen to it while walking home or studying in a café, you really feel like you’re immersed in the aesthetic world of Ghibli. The orchestral compositions of each piece can make anybody feel like the main character of their own personal movie, as the voices of the instruments elevate the emotions of your life story. While any Ghibli lover has their own personal collection of favorite songs, here’s a few you must add to your playlists.

One Summer’s Day from Spirited Away

Path of the Wind from My Neighbor Totoro

Departure from Kiki’s Delivery Service

Merry Go Round of Life from Howl’s Moving Castle

There are many ways of finding intrinsic motivation, and romanticizing life based on Studio Ghibli movie is only one of them. Making everyday interesting and aesthetic—as if you’re the main character of a movie—can give you the energy to push through life, but it won’t work for everybody. The most important part of finding this motivation is realizing what drives you. So try out a lot of different methods, whether it be exploring nature, finding a hobby, or realizing your academic passions. It’ll be a lot harder to burn out if you look forward to living every day to its fullest.