When most people think of the Japanese animation industry, they think of this. Or Disney if they're ignorant doofs. 

Known for their gorgeous visuals, memorable characters and strong coming of age stories, these movies are among the most famous works in the history of animation. 

Sad to say I've only ever seen three of them. My favorite coincidentally is the one that best applies to this forum here, Kiki's Delivery Service. I liked this movie when I was still in high school, about ten years before I started getting into the MG genre itself. I liked it enough that I bought both the DVD and a cute little figure based on the movie.

I admit Ghibli films are something I have a hard time getting through. Of the three I've seen I remember being pretty bored watching them, despite liking the former. They feel kind of like slice of life anime, which I already have a pretty hard time dealing with.

I came close to falling asleep at my PC desk watching Ponyo. I had to stop at about the scene where they make the toy boat grow big enough to ride on. I ended up finishing the movie months later when it became available for instant streaming on Netflix.

The only other one I've seen is Spirited Away. I feel like Totoro is something that I as an anime viewer am obligated to see. It's kind of like a legend among Japanese Animation, famously known in the west and Japan, very iconic, lots of people praise it as being great, yet I never took the time to watch it. It's not that I'm put off by it of course, I just never got around to it.

Princess Mononoke is another that I've heard big praise heaped on, and while I am considering it I'm concerned that it might be a little too dark and bloody for me. 

The only one I'm absolutely 100% dead set on never EVER seeing is Grave of the Fireflies. Just based on what it's about I know it's not going to end well. I do not take rides on the misery train, thank you.

I love ghibli movies, even some of the lacking ones are just really relaxing to me. Like Meditating in a nice forest park. Or eating warm food in a cafe

My favorites are Kiki's Delivery Service, Only Yesterday, & Porco Rosso


Princess Mononoke is really good. It can get kinda gruesome in parts yeah. But I'm a big baby when it comes to gore and I can sit through it just fine.

Oh! Whisper of the Heart I think is really great too! I watched it once at a friends house and I didn't really get it. But I rewatched it in college when I was in the middle of working on my thesis art project - Shizuku's inner struggle to become a better writer was something that really resonated

Castle in Sky is a pretty good adventure movie too! The second half of it when they're in Laputa is really great

I absolutely love them! The only ones I haven't seen are The Tale of Princess Kaguya, When Marnie Was There, The Little Norse Prince and The Castle of Cagliostro (the last two not part of the official line up).

Spirited Away is my absolute favourite with Howl's Moving Castle just behind.

The only one that I find boring is My Neighbours the Yamadas. I'm also not a huge fan of Pom Poko, but I can tolerate it xx

I haven't watched many. I have seen Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle, parts of Kiki's Devilry Service. The same can be said for Tortoro. I own Valley of the Wind, but never watched it. ^^* Then Grave of the Fireflies (THAT MOVIE). I have heard of the others and watch reviews on them. XD

They're pretty good movies. I really like Spirited Away and Howl.

So last year Studio Ghibli made a TV series.

I admit I've been tempted by it. I've heard good things and the protagonist is adorbs. The only thing really putting me off is the CG. It looks very awkward in motion, especially the part at 1:10ish where she's standing up in the tree.

I can kinda understand why they did it. Gorgeously animated movies like Ponyo aren't nearly as much work as a 26 episode TV series, so I doubt they'd go all out with with the Ghibi style. This one almost looks like it has a cell-shaded style going for it.

Wow that's the best CG I have ever seen from a Japanese studio. Like you said when she's moving in the tree it's a bit off. BUT IT'S LIKE MILLION TIMES BETTER THAN THE MOST CG I HAVE SEEN FROM JAPAN. looking at you Toei!

Ok, so I recently re-watched Nausicaa for the first time in about 2 years and, well, it's not as good as I remember it.
I find the first hour to be too slow and a bit boring. The last act of the film is really good, but it's definitely not a favourite.
I absolutely love Nausicaa herself and Teto is cute. But, I was just disappointed and it wasn't what I remember it to be.
Anyone else feel the same?

It's rare for me to start watching anything, but not finish it.  Even for something as long as a movie, I sit through it until it has ended.  It may be that I hate not knowing how something ends (it's like if I stop before the end, I'll always be curious as to how it ended, even for something bad), or that I always believe I can't truly judge it unless I have seen all of it.  Because of this, I know that I love a few Ghibli movies, I like most of the rest, and only have a couple I now avoid - for different reasons.

The ones I love are My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki's Delivery Service, Whisper of the Heart, and (probably) Castle In The Sky.  Totoro I love because I absolutely adore the story it tells.  Probably the only flaw I can find with it is that I think its animation quality is only semi-good to (just plain) good.  Others may like its animation style more, but to me, it's just not detailed enough to be great.  Kiki's is almost the other way around from Totoro.  I absolutely adore its animation quality - very realistic and quite detailed (I especially love the realistic detail I see when she's flying over the city, and I look at the homes, other buildings, and ground).  But the first time I watched it, I found the ending to be unrealistic, which (at least for me) took away from the story it was telling.  Thus at that time, I found its story to be only semi-good to good.  I have recently re-watched it, though, for the primary reason of trying to find its ending realistic.  Thus I think I now see part of the reason its fans can like its ending; I now find its ending semi-realistic, and the overall story to be just plain good.  Whisper has another great story to tell.  And I remember its animation quality as being better than Totoro but (maybe) not quite as good as Kiki's (as I implied, I can't remember this about Whisper for sure).  As for Castle, it's kind-of a question mark between those I love and those I just like because I've only seen it all the way through once - about 15 years ago.  That time, I remember enjoying the storyline, even though the good guys and the bad guys are swapped from the way they should be.  As a general rule, I tend to not like stories where the police and others who are supposed to be good in order to keep society peaceful and law-abiding are portrayed as the bad guys, and the protagonists are seen as criminals by the police and those others.  But Castle seemed to be an exception to that rule; thus I found its storyline to be very good.  But I want to re-watch it now just to make sure of this.  Another, perhaps bigger reason I want to re-watch Castle is that I can't remember what its animation quality was like.  I tried to re-watch it all the way through once, about 5-10 years ago.

Long story about how I started watching it then, but didn't finish it:

Most of the rest of the Ghibli movies I've seen, I like, because from my experiences watching them, I've been able to tell that Hayao Miyazaki does a great job at telling the stories he wants to tell, and his movies never have animation quality below semi-good.  Howl's Moving Castle, Princess Mononoke, and Pom Poko are examples of movies in this category.  (The main reason I didn't like Pom Poko's storyline as much as the ones in the previous paragraph was the sad ending.)

Then there's the last category (Ghibli movies I now avoid).  There are only two movies in it - Spirited Away and Ponyo.  And the former is the only one I've really seen.  I didn't like Spirited Away because I couldn't really follow its storyline (about all I could get out of it was : girl named Chihiro goes with her parents to abandoned amusement park, she somehow enters the spirit world while there, and lots of complicated things happen until she is finally able to free herself from it and return to the human (real-life) world and reunite with her parents).  As for Ponyo, I've never tried to watch it because what I've heard of the storyline just doesn't interest me.

I know there's quite a few other Ghibli movies, but I just don't know enough about them to know whether or not I'd want to watch them.

I love the Studio Ghibli films! My favorite ones are Kiki's Delivery Service, Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle, and Princess Mononoke.