looks provincial compared to the artistic sea-change that came with Spirited Away, or the cultural pervasiveness of My Neighbor Totoro. There seems to be a box-office ceiling for anime movies, but that ceiling does not exist in American culture at large. In January 2020, Shinkai’s follow-up, Weathering with You, made over $7 million in its single week of release. Twelve years later, Makoto Shinkai’s Your Name took Spirited Away’s crown as the most successful anime film of all time, but only made $5 million in the States.
Howl’s Moving Castle made about $5 million. Spirited Away, the highest-grossing film of all time in Japan, made $10 million in the U.S. If you went entirely by North American box-office receipts, Studio Ghibli movies wouldn’t look special. Read all of the stories on our Ghibli Guide page.
With Studio Ghibli’s library now on digital and streaming services, we’ve surveyed the studio’s history, impact, and biggest themes.