What is your favorite nature scene from Studio Ghibli?

Miyazaki said once in an interview, how he noticed that his animators, when asked to colour the ground, coloured the ground slightly different colours - depending on where in japan they hailed from, and their different environments. His perception is incredible.

To put it in a nutshell. Ghibli depicts nature as how we feel it. Disney depicts nature as how we see it. One is a concept interpretation The other a direct interpretation

I feel like in Disney movies nature is a backdrop, while in Ghibli movies it's more of a character in itself. In Disney movies, it literally doesn't matter to the plot, it's just a pretty background. Ghibli sees nature as crucial to the plot, the rain isn't arbitrary, the forest isn't there just because it's a pretty environment. Then again, sometimes I feel like people are comparing the two studios based on nothing but the fact they are both a global success; they don't really have much in common.

I think ghibli also just gives a lot more reverence for nature. They don't skip details. With the tangled scene, they are laying on thick even grass. Forest floors don't look like that. They made it look like that because it's cheaper to make a repetitive texture than a complex one, and 3D dirt is known for not looking very good. Theyre hiding their weaknesses. Ghibli shows the dirt, implies the leaf litter, the moss, the patchy grass, the soft range of diverse colors you'd find in reality. Ghibli loves the fine details and doesn't ever hide them.

There's just something about Studio Ghibli nature scenes that makes me instantly take a deep breath and relax. I can't think of another film that can pull that off as well as Ghibli

As a botanist, Studio Ghibli films are not just better at capturing the essence and feeling of being in nature, but it is truly accurate to what you would find in a true forest and the plants growing with each other. There are moss growing on trees, but not just one moss or lichen, but at least 5 different species growing throughout. The forests are not only one tree species, but many. Moss is an indicator or a thriving and healthy natural environment. Studio Ghibli artists are so observant of nature and have mastered the ability to capture it. Literally every time I go on a hike through a lush forest I say "it feels like I'm in a Ghibli movie" because of how perfectly they have captured a healthy natural environment. Disney and other western animation studios tend to put various plants into one environment-- plants that aren't natural to that environment or naturally found growing together. They also make one-plant forests and completely forego forest diversity. It's a real shame how little America values nature and the natural world. Disney/Pixar makes forests and nature just a backdrop. Studio Ghibli makes forests and nature feel alive and like their own character.

Being a Westerner myself I have to say I like the Eastern approach to nature better. I feel like westerners are more inclined to view nature as something we benefit from more than as something to be respected in of itself.

Many of the critiques of Studio Ghibli's anime by Westerners on KZfaq often seem to completely miss the understanding of the Japanese spiritual philosophy that 'everything has a god.' When I see statements like 'Totoro is a ghost' or descriptions of the bathhouse in 'Spirited Away,' a place where gods gather, being referred to as a 'brothel,' it's both surprising and disheartening. The Japanese belief that 'everything has a god' does not solely come from the modern anthropomorphism found in Shinto; it originates from ancient religions that date back even further. While modern Shinto has anthropomorphized some of these ancient deities, ancient shrines continue to enshrine colossal trees or rocks as 'shintai' deep within their precincts. This concept of 'everything having a god' seems to be understood by non-Japanese individuals, such as Hindus or Native Americans. In this video, spiritual beings are referred to as 'KAMI,' and I believe the major misunderstanding for Westerners lies in not grasping that 'KAMI' could actually be akin to the polytheistic concept of 'God.' In fact, the true name of 'Haku' from 'Spirited Away,' 'NOGOHAYAKOHAKUNUHINOMIKOTO,' signifies his divine nature, but in the English version, possibly to avoid resistance from Western monotheistic views, it's kept ambiguous. However, he is the river itself, a deity, and a dragon god. You might be one of the few who noticed that the giant tree next to Totoro is a revered camphor tree with 'shimenawa' (sacred rope) wound around its trunk. To Japanese viewers, this easily signifies its sacredness, but Westerners might not have noticed this in the past. Your understanding of the Japanese sensitivity to nature and your positive critique is commendable.

Something else to note is that these two styles have very different inspirations. Disney is much more dream oriented, everything becomes very focused on the individual and their influences. Miyazaki's inspirations tends to come from the beauty in daily life, so you can often find a great amount of emphasis placed on smaller relationships and quiet moments throughout his works.

Those silent moments adds much meaning, more than any dialogue could do

This is why I love studio ghibli, it takes you into the setting and it’s almost like you are there with the characters

i bumped into ghibli's movies when the pandemic started, bored doing nothing at home i turned on netflix and kiki's delivery service suggested to me. i gave it a try despite animation from ghibli wasn't my thing (idk why i feel like that before). i sat down, turned play and slowly mesmerised by the arts, story-telling and the most shocking me was the 'quietness and silence' it offers. then i marathon the other ghibli's and i'm in love. maybe because i struggled and had hectic life, ghibli's has gave me the calmness i looking for.

As a Japanese fan of Disney and Ghibli, it’s really interesting to read insightful comments here. One of the differences I think is that Disney focus on people while Ghibli treats people as just a part of the nature.

another thing that we can point out is how Ghibli present nature in a very imperfect manner. Using Tangled again as an example, sure we have bushes and things like that but the forest is so wierdly perfect? There are no jagged rocks, weeds, mushrooms or piles of leaves, which is a really common thing in a lot of animated Disney movies, the scenes are pretty, yes, but they're also so empty because they lack imperfection. Ghibli absolutely stuffs their nature scenes with thick walls of plants and there's uneven ground, wild flowers and dead leaves everywhere, it adds so much life

Studio Ghibli makes the scenes beautiful and calm.. Disney is more like action without a moment of calm...

Don't forget how Ghibli frame their scene. How the camera moves. In Ghibli's movies, the camera is static most of the time. The only movements are tilting, panning, and zooming. It makes the framing feels grounded, as if we were right there with the character. In contrast with Disney's movies. They move the camera a lot, they fly here and there, it disconnects us.

Scenes from these movies feel so real to me, as if I were actually there, that I feel like I can experience them as my own memories when I call them back...

The tradition of Shintoism has blended so much into Japanese culture that the people say they are not religious but still celebrate festivals and visit shrines. Due to this, the Japanese psyche itself feels a great reverence at best or deep respect at the least and this is why in Ghibli movies nature feels so different due to the strong presence and attachment of Shinto. Tl;dr: Japan has a very old tree hugging religion and even non-religious people do Shinto stuff to the point of it being part of them and it is in Ghibli movies too.

one of the most magical scenes in mononoke is when the forest spirit walks. the plants rising and falling, growing then dying. it portrays this terrifying sublimity. in these scenes, theres either no music, or no sound whatsoever. it makes you feel like youre experiencing that moment and holding your breath because youre in the presence of a god.

I think Disney is storybook and Ghibli is dreamlike. Disney is reality idealized and simplified and Ghibli is meaning heightened.

The intro to Kiki’s delivery service takes me back to when I was 7 lying in the tall grass on a windy day in the field of my parents home. It felt like it was part of the world and not an observer, it was a great feeling to experience that again.

It makes a lot more sense as to why I started collecting plants and getting more into gardening after my dad passed away after a year and a half of pancreatic cancer. It was a coping technique but I also find great comfort in watching things grow, rather than watching them fade away. Nature and plants are beautiful in such a unique way. Something calm and tranquil about nature that is very ingrained into us.

Ghibli films are beautiful because they're not afraid of ugliness. Like other commenters have said, the forest floor isn't a soft carpet of freshly cut grass with an even color; it's mossy, earthy, multiple colors. There are dead plants and misshapen trees and creepy creatures. Ok, that one isn't realistic, but my point is that those movies don't sugarcoat and flatten nature, it gives it a complex personality that isn't all easy, likeable or comfortable. It's unforgiving and it doesn't care about people above any other resident. Yet it beckons, and we are enticed to want to protect it instead of exploiting it for ourselves.

I think one more comparison of nature could be drawn from Ponyo and the Little Mermaid. It comes from the rulers of the waters. In The Little Mermaid, it’s Triton, Ariel’s father, someone harsh and a bit bitter toward humans. But in Ponyo, it’s her mother. And of course, we have Mother Nature and all, but they both represent different things. Triton is the unforgiving nature of the ocean-the harsh storms and the destructive waves. But Ponyo’s mother is the kind nature of the ocean. She is the soft waves that ebb and flow along beaches, ecosystems that flourish with a caring touch, and, with Fujimoto, it’s how humans can connect to the water.

Laputa: Castle in the Sky's line "One cannot live apart from the earth" is my favorite.

I always rewatch Ghibli movies once per week at 4 AM, they can change how I feel about my surrounding, like from heavy and dark, to a peaceful place.

The main thing I've noticed with Ghibli movies is how it lets there be relative silence. They don't feel the need to fill in every waking moment with music or talking or a chase scene or flashing lights like Disney does to keep its audience entertained, they understand the importance of peace and moments of pure rest in the story where there are no stakes, where everything is perfectly fine in a single moment, to make the action filled moments all that more exciting. Disney feels like it wants to make the characters talk out the plot, rarely leaving a single scene empty of characters. Ghibli knows how to craft a beautiful world and perfect that feeling of calm, so no character would have to say that things are calm and they are happy.

I am Japanese and I heard that Japanese gardens have trees and grasses grow as naturally as possible, while western gardens try to control them as much as possible by cutting them into symmetrical or geometrical shapes. In Japanese gardens, a pond is there from the beginning and stones are in natural shapes. In Western Gardens, a fountain is made artificially and stones are carved into sculptures. I grew up watching Ghibli just like every other Japanese, but I never noticed the differences in drawing nature between Ghibli and Disney. Thank you for noticing such an interesting thing!

I like to call the moments that Ghibli captures little moments. It’s a time for you to stop and breathe. Where you notice something new because you chose to take a closer look (and are rewarded when you do so). You can see these being actively animated in ghibli films. The way the grass moves in the wind is different to how the flowers move. The sunlight shines in imperfect patterns through the leaves. Little tiny fish swim in the shallows of the lake. Small stuff that is important but often overlooked. The Disney environments feel static and stage like in comparison because the small stuff isn’t moving. It instead focuses on the big stuff, the things that everyone sees first. It functions while ghibli environments thrive.

Another thing I like about Studio Ghibli is that I know the characters aren't going to start singing out of nowhere. Sometimes I enjoy musicals, sometimes I want to know that there will be moments to rest my mind and stop processing information.

From what i've seen, Ghibli studio creates an environment for their characters to live in whereas Disney setup a stage for the characters to act in it.

I think another reason is cuz painting has texture, 3D is incredibly smooth and lacks texture

Have a thump up! I think what the Japanese do very well is that they leave room for a scene - and the story - to breathe. And Ghibli want to tell a good, heartfelt, layered story. Modern Disney on the other hand is a master at creating a movie mainly for merch reasons. The characters prattle a lot and some iconic scenes and designs are created to milk them later. Is how I personally feel.

For me, the scene from Spirited Away when Chihiro is riding the train, those views from the window, ghosts, and Numa Hara station.

With CGI you can create every single little piece of grass, the sweat on someone's forehead, the bark on a tree, millions of insects, all in one scene. It hard work, but you draw a few grass and then just duplicate it all over the scene. It's gorgeously beautiful, but boring. It makes your brain lazy. With hand drawn animation, it's impossible to draw all that grass, so the artist with draw the "idea" of grass with a few lines, and paint it with different shades of color. It forces your brain to fill the grass, to actually work and this forces you to pay attention. CGI is amazing, but it feels cold compared to hand drawn

Such a cool analysis thank you. I miss the old hand-drawn Disney. It felt a lot more magical. Like Bambi and Fantasia and Snow White. Loved those. Ghibli are amazing and will always be one of my favorite studios.

One Disney depiction of nature that I love is the forest in Sleeping Beauty, the large widescreen format and Aurora’s singing voice echoing in the trees when she sings to the birds makes it feel so vast. And I love how stylised it is, with strange geometric shapes - it simultaneously feels very 2 dimensional, like a set piece on a stage, but also full of depth and texture, as If you could explore it for hours on end. Nothing quite matches Ghibli’s forests though.

I quite liked the nature depicted in tangled actually; It was a version of nature as how I perceived it *felt* as a child. Soft, colorful, and non threatening. And I loved the way the animators portrayed that in tangled. They're different art styles, neither is better than the other, they both achieved effects and 3D animation is by no means easy. Look at Miyazaki's 3D work and you'll understand. They're different mediums and require different approaches. But it's okay they're different.

Sound design is one of those aspects of Ghibli films that people do not ever give them enough credit for.

That's probably the reason why Ghibli movies always feel so calming.

studio ghibli movies are just so beautiful. i find myself rewatching them time after time to never feel bored and am able to appreciate the beauty each time.

Every shot of nature in Ghibl movies is like a painting.

People talk about how Ghibli's nature has greater attention to detail and that's why it works better, but I would argue it's more so that Ghibli has a better understand of _which_ details to keep in their depictions, and which to leave out. There's something very impressionistic and romantic about Ghibli, which is why it _feels_ so real, it's almost like we can smell and taste and feel it, even though film is only a visual and auditory medium. That's what impressionism and romanticism do: It's a painting of feelings rather than objective visual information. What we remember from our own experiences of nature is the way it engages our senses: The feeling of warmth and wind on our skin, the smell of grass and flowers, the buzzing of insects and the sound of rustling leaves, the rich colors and lush foliage, the mottled light filtering through treetops, which we can see even with our eyes clothes. In Miyazaki's movies, the drawings depict these things - and leave out everything else. There are no harsh outlines, no definition of the individual blades of grass. Such details would only distract from the feeling of harmony and one-ness. Studio Ghibli backdrops remind me a lot of the Baroque art movement... they have the same kind of focus on colors and light above everything else, and the blurry quality of viewing something through a nostalgic and emotion-based lens. Like a dream. This same principle is what makes caricature drawings work. They're exaggerated and not "objectively" accurate to the person being drawn, yet somehow they feel even more spot-on than a photorealistic drawing would, because they capture the ESSENCE of a person rather than treating each detail about a face as if they're all equally important, and this essence is what we recognize on an emotional and human level. On top of all that, there is also the simple fact that hand-drawn, painterly-type animation is much better suited for this than 3D animation lol. At least until recently, when 3D-animation studios started stylizing their movies in a more 2D-looking way, like in the Spiderverse movies, Nimona, Arcane, Puss in Boots 2, and such. Unless you stylize it like this, 3D animation just inherently looks more sterile, because of the way assets and objects are so clearly separated and defined (like the thing with each individual blade of grass being equally visible). If you want an image to _feel_ more real, you need to be able to prioritize certain details and scrap others completely, which is hard to do with 3D assets. I really love the way recent 3D products are being made to look more painterly and 2D, for this reason. It's like studios are realizing the difference this makes.

From the first scenes comparison: in my view it isn't only the addition of sound... In mononoke, we see the viewpoint of Achitaka waking up. It is very powerful as an immersive tool. We see the forest in a more immersive way. Then we have more use of wind, and the water drop, which gives a feeling of touch. Miyazaki uses the wind in every scene you showed and this is very different from the disney counterparts you showed.

For me, Bambi is the best Disney representation of nature

Again the best part of Studio Ghibli is so lovely and lifelike and the sounds and color encompass that because Miyazaki travels a lot for his background environmental inspirations and experiences

Those Tangled scenes have a "misleading mobile game ad" vibe

i prefer 2d animation

It's impossible to pick a specific scene to be a favorite...they are intricate, beautiful, and play key roles in their specific scenes... A memorable one that does stand out is the aerial scenes in Kiki's delivery service, as it is a blend of natural scenery and man made structures, which makes it feel like a place that actually exists in real life. It helps solidify the setting of a magical girl trying to make it in the real world, and it's somewhat a unique vibe even among Ghibli films.

Myazaki dosen't have Disney pointing a gun at him trying to achieve a commercial product with the Need to be actually a movie Also great video, tour reasons keep me thinking for quite a bit

You could mostly pin this down on most Disney movies being musicals, their sound design takes a back seat usually to the film score. It affects all scenes, but it's most noticeable in nature scenes.

As an amateur artist myself (2d digital painter since 2017, traditional graphite + charcoal drawer since April 2022) I do feel much more connection to 2d art and hand drawn animations as well. Disney's new movies like Tangled or Frozen can depict nature much more accurately, they can make infinite details and definition, make them as dynamic as they want, but it lacks the masterfully crafted look of hand drawn things. Everything in Frozen's forest feels like an object that was just put there to accompany the characters, but everything in the Ghibli environments were deliberately placed and shaped into their best form by someone who put care into even a single piece of grass or a leaf. 3d can easily be more, but hardly any better, the same goes even harder to AI generated, and even to digital in general. Since I started traditional drawing not even a year ago I feel I can appreciate every piece of creation much more than before. The limitations of a less forgiving medium make you more mindful and it makes you put all your effort into everything you make, and then others will feel the connection through every element be it a line with a pencil or a spot with a brush.

I'd have said Ghibli's take looks more like a fairy tale - ethereal, magical, close to nature while Disneys' looks theatrical, like props and backgrounds only there to set the scene

the one western animation where nature gave that feeling and stayed in my mind for decades is ferngully and i always thought it was disney but just realized it not only wasn’t disney but disney tried to sabotage it loo

Ghibli shows a proper, natural forest Disney shows a park in a city Gihbli shows a forest that grows in a natural environment, where there's not just one type of grass, but a multitude, where the shadowed, more moist parts have moss in between the tufts of grass. Where water starts with falling on branches, falling down to moisten the ground, gather in small brooks who flows into streams into rivers. Where stone is intermingled with sand and dirt in a ever changing landscape that's neither flat nor structured. Its a beautiful ordered chaos. Disney shows mono cultures planted with spaces, few species on flat monolithic grass fields. It's not a living forest but a dull park. It's a repetitive structure without soul.

What I noticed is that Disney's backgrounds feel flat as well as the bright green color of green, the grass is like a mowed lawn, flat and even grass while it's in a forest. But Ghibli's is much more natural, bumpy, uneven sections, bright but still a natural green of different tones that don't feel out of place, it's trees are mossy and the bark is intricate instead of simple patterns. In Disney, the plants look to be connected to their own kind instead of growing on each other which makes it look like some random images put into one scene. Ghibli makes it seem like the forests and nature are connected, they are one within their roots regardless of the plant type, you can tell they are different plants but you can see that they naturally overlap like in nature itself.

When I think of Disney animation and nature, my mind always turns to the scene from The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (a super underrated classic) in which Ichabod Crane is riding home from the Halloween dance through the woods on his horse, right before their encounter with the Headless Horseman. It doesn’t have the same beauty as a scene from a Studio Ghibli film, but the way the film builds up suspense using a wall of ambient sounds of nature at night (the wind, insects, birds, rusting plants, and the horse’s footsteps) is absolutely bone-chilling. That and the gorgeous, haunting animation both beautifully represent Ichabod’s fall into hysterics, right before the Horseman enters the picture. A few other scenes that come to mind is the one in Snow White in which she’s in the field picking flowers and singing, the deleted Clair de Lune sequence from Fantasia, all of the forest scenes in Sleeping Beauty, and the scene near the beginning of The Lion King where it rains in the savanna.

Shinto plays a big part in depicting nature in Gibli movies but there are also other cultural factors at play. 1. Wabi-sabi. It's a Buddhist concept of finding beauty in imperfect and transient things. You see it in how Mononoke's nature is more rustic with typical insects than Tangled's nature with an idealized butterfly and mowed lawn. This is kind of the opposite of Shintoism. Shintoism sees life in nature. Wabi Sabi sees decay but finds its transience beautiful. 2. Japonisme. It was a late 19th century aesthetic movement in France where Japanese style influenced French style. It actually had a big impact on impressionism. Gibli movies have very Western aethetics, but not typically Western. The result is a more subtle and nature-based form of Western styles. You see this in the various houses nestled in nature and people's clothes. 3. Japanese Indirect Communication. Japanese people think it's insulting to one's intelligence when people hit you over the head with a message. So Japanese people and Japanese art tend less to hit you over the head with the message. You don't need a soundtrack to convey the situation if you sufficiently immerse the audience in the setting. In movie critic terms, it's "show, don't tell". 4. The concept of the Shiki. Shiki means "Four Seasons" but it's more about the philosophy of appreciating the distinctness of each season. Japan has very distinct seasons. They have snow, hot summers, and very stable springs and autumns. Japanese people have come to appreciate nature for exhibiting these distinct seasons. 5. Romanticism. This is a European movement that linked moral purity with nature. Gibli movies often tell the story through a child protagonist, which is a symbol of innocence. Innocent child in innocent nature. Disney movies tend to cast older protagonists (teens) whereas Gibli casts young children more often. Nature seen through children is the purest form of beauty to the Romanticist. 6. Modern environmentalism. Miyazaki is an environmentalist and it shows in his work. But the way he does it is by making people fall in love with nature rather than by hitting people over the head with an agenda. When Western movies try environmentalism, they tend more to hit people over the head with an explicit agenda. Again, it relates to "show, don't tell". I think that covers most of what makes Gibli movies different from Western movies in terms of depictions of nature. I just wanted to point out that it's not about Shintoism vs. Other Religions as some people in the comments are making it out to be. Romanticism has ties with the Christian nostalgia for the Garden of Eden. Wabi Sabi is a Buddhist concept. What makes Gibli great is that he takes whatever concepts that are compelling regardless of whether they are Eastern or Western and incorporate them to tell a great story.

The pacing and video editing is stellar. I especially appreciated how the scenes were played first before the analysis and again after discussing the contrast between them. By allowing the viewer to have an opinion first, the video challenges the audience to intellectually engage with the analysis. Its refreshing.

I feel like the plastic lighting that disney uses is at least half of the reason why their nature looks like an IKEA display.

lesson from Studio Ghibli: Allow the quiet space and time to breathe.

I am presently working on my graduation movie, and I was feeling so lost of all the possibilities I had before me. I closed my eyes and wished upon the angels to show me a video on my 3rd refresh of my youtube screen. Yours was in the top row. Thank you for this (and also for the angels for guiding me to it), All the ideas are very well put. Indeed, natural sounds and the care to include nature as a meditation-like place and experience are so much part of Ghibli's magic. To my own reference, I'm leaving hereby a quote by Myazaki which you included at 17:10 According to Hayao Miyazaki, "we don't subordinate the natural setting to the characters. That is because we feel the world is beautiful. Human relationships are not the only thing that is interesting. We think that weather, time, rays of light, plants, water, and wind, what make up the landscape, are all beautiful. That is why we make efforts to incorporate them as much as possible in our work."

The Tree worship was something that existed in Europe as well. Celts, Germanics, Slavs, and Norse considered several different types as sacred. Oaks were connected to gods like Thor or Perun. Ash trees, Birch trees, Willow trees, Pine trees, Beach trees... All being seen as sacred and holy for different reasons. Druids, Völur, and other groups like that had their groves with trees that were hundreds of years old. Some stone circles/henges had large trees incorporated into them at some point. Christianity made most of it going away, with the only remnant of it to survive to this day to be the "christmas tree" adapted from the originally scandinavian tradition of the Yule tree, that always involved a live tree, never a cut down one. During the witch hunts, many of the old groves were cut down or burned, as places of devil worship, and then very often churches or chapels built right on top of them.

I wanna live in a ghibli movie, they always are so calm and pretty ☺️

amazing analysis! this video has given me a new perspective on eastern culture and how it's portrayed in its media. i always felt so connected to the nature in ghibli films, and now i know why i get that feeling

Ghibli makes me feel like when I was a kid, experiencing nature for the first time

Disney doesn't show theyre nature with silence but they express it with a score. For example this land from the lion king, it such a wonderful and beautiful score and express the beauty of nature. Or the opening of the little mermaid with that chore at the background resembling the beauty if the ocean. Or as song. Circle of life described what nature and life is and what they have in common. Or Colours of the wind also describes the beauty of nature. Ghibli shows its nature by ambience and Disney by theyre scores and songs

It is a bit unfair to only compare Ghibli films to Disney's CGI works. For example Bambi depicts nature in such a beautiful and detailed way, but it can be more abstract at times

Miyazaki: We have everything important within three meters radius.

I grew up in rural Texas, I mean way out there where I didn't have any neighbors. I grew up trapsing through the little forests and fields here, and totally under how it feels to live on cities, it's depressing not hearing just the wind, or birds, so many nights you'd hear foxes and coyotes (the animal), ferral pigs, and my personal favorite the little bitty bird called a Whippoorwill. I hope I can return to that one day.

In the mention of Western animation not having this connection with nature or just embracing it, you've actually just changed my viewpoint on the setting of the 1987 film "The Brave Little Toaster", slight spoilers for this 36 year old movie. How we spend a good 20 minutes before the adventure even starts just knowing the characters in the daily life of the isolated cabin in the woods, awaiting the day their family's car will pull up for another holiday. But like you mention, this movie's soundtrack is very unique in which even when David Newman's brilliant score accompanies a scene, it knows when to cut out and let the atmosphere sink in and it's just the characters emotions, from the realization another car has passed, the natural sounds of the forest critters in the meadow, the waterfall when our heroes plunge down leaving the grumpy vacuum, wishing them gone in anger a minute ago to ponder what to do, the city bustling, or the industrial sounds of the crusher and electro magnetic humming buzz in the junkyard at the climax. A rare instance where the sound design and the environment really sinks in and the score is subsided in a western animation.

心の風景を描くのが宮崎駿。 光に反射したものを描くのがディズニー。

I just wanted to say I noticed that some English dubs of Ghibli films they *added* extra scoring so that there wasn’t so many “quiet” scenes. I was more familiar with non-English versions, so it was very noticeable and jarring and I wasn’t able to enjoy the ambient sounds I was expecting. They didn’t feel like they needed to be there either. I like how you phrased that Ghibli sets the scene with elegance, because they really do:

If you’re not using your sense of taste while in the forest, you’re doing it wrong.

日本はやはり神道の影響が強いので、自然との共生という点においては自らの世界の中に介在する自然観というものを持ち合わせているような気がします。それもごく自然に。

Miyazaki is so damn good at conveying nature that I associate nature itself with his films sometimes.

One movie, although not animated, that gave me similar feelings of biophilia in Studio Ghibli movies is the 2005 Pride & Prejudice. Throughout the movie, there are a lot of nature scenes where sometimes you could just hear ambient sounds, sometimes there is music but the music complements the ambient sounds and the scene shots so well that it's almost seamless. The intro of the movie is just literally a shot of the sun rising slowly, the sun rays shining through a bunch of trees, soft music playing, with lots of birds chirping. There were a lot of shots where the environment takes up majority of the screen while the characters are just small in comparison. Even the non-nature environments such as the ballroom, marketplace, dinner table, and parlor scenes the sound design is just so good you could hear all sorts of sounds even with the music overlayed and they make the scenes just feel alive and tangible. Thanks for such a great video, keep it up!

I can’t agree that one scene is better than the other, they are going for different things. Tangled is going for an almost comically fantastical moment. It stays light and bubbly. It’s not trying to portray reality. That being said, I think this is an interesting thing to identify and point out. I think you’re right about that being a big reason why Ghibli movies are so special to so many of us.

Besides all the things you pointed out, I've noticed that anime often actually has more realistic variations of weather than Western movies, more random strong breezes, light rain & whatnot, along with a more realistic messy forest instead of clean cut- & they'll always have loud cicadas in any summer scene. Everything is done in a way to submerse you in the moment, instead of just compelling the character to move the story for you. Amazing video btw :D

I think we can all agree that Disney Forest's peaked with Bambi.

I wouldn't mind having a massive reanimation and rewriting project of every single one of Disney's works, just to see how far I can push Disney's fairytale vibe from their first draft, to their final draft, and to my first draft to my last draft.

ジブリは宮崎駿が子供達に自然に触れてもらいたいっていう思いが込められていると聞いたことがある。アメリカと日本では自然に対する思いや共生意識が違うと思う。

I want to point out that in scenes depicting breathtaking nature, Disney focuses more on the characters reaction, relying on the audience to empathize with the character based of how they’re feeling. Ghibli, however, focuses more on the scene rather than the characters, allowing the audience to appreciate the beauty and feel a sense of awe that we are familiar with. It’s harder to inflict certain feelings onto an audience when they can’t fully grasp the essence of what happening. Much like how it’s difficult to feel sadness for a character suffering the loss of a loved one when we aren’t given the in depth context of how impactful and meaningful the loved one was towards the character. In Disney scenes the camera follows the character or the activity as if the world revolves around them, Ghibli’s cameras stay still emphasizing the setting, indicating it’s the character experiencing and exploring the world.

What I notice is that the disney forests feel more “safe” than the Ghibli ones. The Ghibli forests don’t feel dangerous, but they feel alive in a way the disney ones don’t. Disney forests don’t give you the sense that there are rabbits and mice in the bushes, or squirrels and birds in the trees. They feel empty, like a fake garden made of plastic. The greens are so bright and saturated that they end up feeling flat, and the shading on the trees is so uniform that it flattens the texture of the bark. There’s little ground cover in the backgrounds and none in the foregrounds. Ghibli, and the older hand drawn Disney forests, on the other hand feel full and alive. Even when it isn’t being threatened that a predator is going to jump out and attack, the foliage comes up and surrounds the characters. Even without sound design, they are visually different because in the disney forests you can distinctly feel that humans curated this forest. Honestly Brave is the only 3D animated disney movie I can think of that did this well, and it was done by pixar.

This was such a beautiful description of nature. I enjoyed how you explained how there are moments of silence and tranquility in Studio Ghibli films, and how they don't always have to be fast-paced and lead up to the plot. They are moments where you can decompress and be one with nature

Thank you for the very interesting video. As a Finn, I've always been especially fond of the nature moments of studio Ghibli. Here in Finland we say that forest is the church of the people. This was literally the case during the pre-Christian times. People would have sacred groves, and going to any natural place, such as the forest or the lake, would always have the strong undertoning of visiting a sacred place of the deity of that place, and thus you ought to act mindfully and respectfully. The crusades changed a lot, as that religion sees the man as the possessor, the ruler of the nature. The churches would be build on the spots of the sacred groves, breaking the connection the people had with the local nature. Sacrificing to the deities of the nature was prohibited, and instead, people were made to worship one single god, which had no connection to the nature and looked exactly like the man themselves. People were made to worship themselves, instead of the nature they yet still are part of. Yet, even in the modern day, I can see that Finns have a relatively strong connection to the nature. We go to the woods all year around to heal, to relax, to slow down, to find food, to experience the awe. The natural forests are relatively close to even our biggest cities, and as a Finn, one of the things that would horrify me the most about the idea of living in a metropoly abroad, would be a mere square of neatly cut grass (called "the park") given to me as the only connection to the nature. We shouldn't underestimate the importance of the nature to our mental health.

Honestly, even the best productions from Desney does not even come close to the experience of Ghibli. Every movie of Ghibli triggers the sense of adventure and is genuinely inspiring, while Disney, whatever Studio, is just a set.

for me, it is the perspective, camera angles, and scale, that make the difference along with a very natural depth of field.

Somehow the Ghobli films make the grass feel laid in, Disneys looks laid on top of

I remember watching my neighbor totoro as a kid and it had such a magnificent and huge impact on me to the point were after i finished watching the movie and looked out the window into the biggest tree from my window and i could have sworn i saw totoro's shadow standing on top of the tree now that i look back on it it was probably my imagination but ghibli studio movies change alot in a person in a way of perception to the better i really hope they wont stop making movies

Princess mononoke was one of the best animated movies of all time So beautiful

Disney: Ah yeah, nature. Just the feeling. Moving on. Studio Ghibli: *Takes the time to study nature.*

「無音のシーンが多いと、ディズニー慣れした子供は鑑賞しない」と指摘され、天空の城ラピュタ(Laputa Castle in the sky)の吹き替え版ではBGMが追加されました。 自然音だけの日本オリジナル版と見比べると興味深いですよ。

I'd just like to point out that the studio named "Cartoon Saloon" also quite whimsically captures its viewers by connecting them with nature. In the Secret of the Kells, they focus on the light of nature and its intricacies; In the Song of the Sea, they focus on the sound of nature in the wind, in the seas, and the stones; In the Wolfwalkers, they focus on the connection of nature with a sacred pack of wolves. A reoccurring theme in their movies - and what makes them distinct from studio Ghibli - is how there is both a presence and/or an absence "motherhood". In a way, they connect nature and motherhood, which adds a depth of childhood and nostalgia that isn't as heavily present in Studio Ghibli; making it feel more personal to the viewer who could have either (present or absent mother). I love how you presented this case in the video and kudos to you on this video. I do hope that you check Cartoon Saloon out because they really make amazing movies (I personally haven't watched all of them, but their movies are truly some of my all time favorites). ^^ PS When I said "motherhood" is what sets Cartoon Saloon from Studio Ghibli apart, I meant that with the exception of My Neighbor Totoro... I think; okay, to be honest, I haven't watched it yet but you've mentioned their absent mother in the video, so XD PPS Another recurring theme is "family" in general, but they often really lean more on the "motherhood" theme

Studio Ghibli's animation is so much better than Disney, always has. It makes me so happy and it's so relaxing. It's definitely biophilia for me. I love being in my backyard with the trees, it's so relaxing. And it reminds me more of Ghibli than Disney to be in my yard.

But actually, the grass in Tangled is exactly what I FEEL about that kind of grass: the grass of a manicured lawn in a rich suburb. Monocultured, sprayed with RoundUp and fertilizer, and never meant to survive the season. The grass in Tangled didn't look fake, they look exactly how we experience it: sterile and uniform. Disney didn't recreate the grass of a ancient European forest. They recreated the lawn grass from Home Depot.

ジブリが描く自然は手を触れると汚れてしまいそうなほど汚いし、人間にとって不都合なリアルさがある ディズニーの描く自然は綺麗すぎる、土の匂いがしないしゲームの平坦なテクスチャみたい

Filmmakers like Andrei Tarkovsky and Terrence Malick are very similar to Miyazaki in how they see nature, not only filming at "root level" but as a mediation toward how humans approach the natural world, going so far as showing all four elements of nature, often in pairs, not only showing its mysticism but also the hostility of the environment. The pivotal characters from each filmmaker, try to find a balance between nature and humanity. Metaphorically speaking, sometimes choosing to bury themselves within the earth. Even looking at an Ansel Adams photograph, you find how he is mesmerized by how larger than life nature actually is that in contrast to the average spectator regarding scale, but also capturing nature's growth along the elements in seeing that beauty in light.

It'd be unfair to say Ghibli depicts nature "better" when compared to the likes of Disney, just differently. Disney is fundamentally about telling fairytale stories, so the landscapes are shown through that lens - they feel less "real" but they feel more "magical" - they suit the story they're trying to tell. Ghibli is more interested in showing the beauty of the little moments we encounter every day, and so a lot of emphasis is placed on putting life into the environments so they feel lived in, and alive. Disney and Ghibli are trying to immerse you in very different worlds, and inspire very different feelings in its audience - and I'd say both do a very good job at inspiring the feelings they're setting out to. Which is better at that point just comes down to personal preference. Great video, very interesting exploration on the different perspectives in the portrayal of nature in animated movies and how culture has affected it!