Japanese Settlement in Studio Ghibli

Japan is a collection of thousands of islands, something that is featured greatly in many of the Studio Ghibli anime. For example, Laputa: Castle in the Sky was based around the fictional legend of many floating Islands in the sky, which could be a metaphor for the way in which Japan is distributed as land. My Neighbour Totoro details several important cultural references through the setting of the film.

For example, the house that the family move into is a stereotypical portrayal of a rural Japanese home. The sliding doors that they first walk through are a key feature in many houses of this type and are typically kept open during the day and closed at night. A second key feature of their home would be the way in which the foundations are constructed. They do not have cellars but instead shallow foundations, just big enough to crawl under. This is shown when Mai follows one of the smaller Totoros into the cellar. The community which Satsuki and her family have moved into is a typical agricultural town. The rice paddies are visible throughout the movie. Rice cultivation is one of the most important industries in Japan, as rice is a staple of the Japanese diet. This is also shown in Princess Mononoke, when the white wolves interrupt some workers transporting rice over the mountain.

Princess Mononoke is set in a feudal Japan, a time of upheaval of samurai and isolated villages. The ideas of settlement show clear implications that nature (the forest spirits and creatures) are fighting back against the human citizens, who are trying to exploit the natural recourses available on the rural land. Eboshi (the female leader of the settlement) has discovered a powerful secret - gunpowder. This shows how a once rural Japan has now hit a dramatic expansion, and with it's developments of new weaponry, has become more powerful than it's natural surroundings.

The landscapes in Princess Mononoke also has specific references to landscapes in Japan, such as the ancient forests of Yakushima, of Kyūshū, and the mountains of Shirakami-Sanchi in northern Honshū. Princess Mononoke could be seen as a message from Miyazaki to Japanese society. It seems he is trying to convey that wat, violence and disrespect for nature by humans, destroys the delicate relationship between humanity and nature.

Spirited Away contains critical commentary on modern Japanese society concerning generational conflicts, the struggle with dissolving traditional culture and environmental pollution. Chihiro, as a representation of young Japanese women, may be seen as a metaphor for the Japanese society which, over the last decade, seems to be increasingly in limbo, drifting uneasily away from the values and ideological framework of the immediate postwar era.

Miyazaki brought an element of 'old Japan' into this animation, as Chihiro and her parents initially travel past this old abandoned fairground, which is a symbol for Japan's broken economy. There are environmental links, just as there are in Princess Mononoke, with trash deforming the River God and Haku’s plight over the loss of his river to apartment complexes, which further indicates that the sources of pollution within the bathhouse, a place of ritual purity, comes from within the Japanese society.

This Ghibli film could be a reflection of how Japanese economy growth is causing the environment great pollution. Also shows how the environment has now become poisonous for us to live. The film shows this when Princess Nausicaa discovers the poisonous forest.