30 Funny Memes To Send To Your Studio Ghibli-Obsessed Friends

The ‘Hayao Miyazaki - Movies’ Facebook page has a jaw-dropping 520k followers. Its popularity is a testament to the quality of Studio Ghibli’s movies, people’s love of Miyazaki’s animations, as well as the Facebook page team’s efforts to promote the community through gorgeous pictures, as well as funny and relatable memes.

Be warned though—after you’re done enjoying this list, you’re probably going to want to binge-watch everything from My Neighbor Totoro to Spirited Away. Although that sounds like a thoroughly awesome idea. We may need to reschedule our plans for the next week… 

Miyazaki, now 82, was born in Bunkyo, Tokyo, Japan, in 1941. He started his decades-spanning and illustrious career in 1963 when he joined Toei Animation. The filmmaker had shown an interest in manga and animation from a very early age. He directed his first feature film, Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro, in 1979.

It was after the success of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, released in 1984, that Miyazaki co-founded Studio Ghibli together with Isao Takahata. Widely known and adored in Japan at the time, the filmmaker began making waves in the West with the release of Princess Mononoke in 1997. 

The filmmaker cemented his reputation in the West with Spirited Away in 2001 which won Picture of the Year at the Japanese Academy Awards. It was also the first anime movie to win an American Academy Award. Some of the recurring themes that Miyazaki analyzes in his films include humankind’s relationship with nature and technology. 

There’s a shroud of mystery surrounding Miyazaki’s latest animated feature film, How Do You Live?, which has had barely any marketing done for it. The aim is to have fans of the filmmaker’s work experience the movie without having any other preconceptions. According to The Hollywood Reporter, it is the first Studio Ghibli film to get a simultaneous Imax release.

Miyazaki claims that How Do You Live? will be his last feature film. However, if you’re getting a sudden sense of déjà vu, you’re not alone in this. The legendary filmmaker made a similar claim a decade ago, when he released The Wind Rises in 2013. He came out of retirement in 2016 to work on How Do You Live?

“Deep down, I think this is what moviegoers latently desire,” Studio Ghibli’s lead producer Toshio Suzuki, widely known as Miyazaki’s right-hand, said about the newest feature’s lack of promotional material. Nearly everything is kept under wraps about the “grand fantasy” project.

There’s only been a single poster released for the film, and nothing’s known neither about the plot, the voice cast, nor the characters. In the age of annoyingly detailed movie trailers, this is a breath of fresh air and yours truly is glad this is Studio Ghibli’s approach. How Do You Live? premiers in Japan on July 14, according to Polygon.

Part of the ‘Hayao Miyazaki - Movies’ Facebook page’s success stems from the quality of the memes that the curators share. Naturally, they have to be related to Studio Ghibli movies to appeal to the fans. However, what also helps is that they’re so universal that practically anyone who stumbles on them can relate to them on some level.

And that specific feature—a meme’s relatability—is what lies at the core of a picture’s virality. Memes are meant to be shared, and people share what they deeply resonate with. Make the meme too niche and you’ll only have a small crowd of fans who ‘get’ the joke. However, if the pictures speak to people’s daily experiences, they’ll be happy to like them, comment on them, and share them with their friends. But above all of that, the Facebook page’s memes are fun!

Which of these memes were your favorite, dear Pandas? Which Studio Ghibli animations do you like the most? What was the very first Miyazaki movie that you saw? What are your hopes and expectations for the filmmaker’s final feature film, How Do You Live? Swing on by the comment section and let everyone know what you think.