How to Create Beautiful Worlds As Told By Studio Ghibli Movies

Nothing can capture beauty and wonder quite like Studio Ghibli movies. If you've never seen one, get thee hence and watch one. I would highly recommend My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki's Delivery Service, Howl's Moving Castle, and Spirited Away(from which I stole the image for this particular post).

Their director, Miyazaki, is a master of creating incredible,  beautiful worlds for his movies, whether the movie is set in the real world or one he created, and I never get over how lovely and unique they are. I would very much like to live in one of them, so if someone could get me a train ticket, that would be lovely.

How to Create Beautiful Worlds (As Told by Studio Ghibli)

1. Not everything has to be explained.

Miyazaki movies do the exact opposite of an infodump. They leave a lot of things unexplained. Why can't we eat the food of the ghosts? You don't know! Why is this promise bound by magic but not that one? He won't tell you! How does the magic work? None of your business!

But it works!

Miyazaki designs these worlds to have a lot of rules that don't make sense and a lot of empty space to be filled with the imagination. But one of the great things about worldbuilding is that the audience doesn't have to know everything for the world to feel real. In fact, sometimes it's the absence of explanation that gives the world its life. You don't know everything about the world you live in either, and that's why it feels more familiar to have some gaps in your knowledge of a fictional world.

2. Think outside the box on your settings and creatures.

Want a walking radish man? Why not? A talking fireplace? Here ya go! Sentient coal dust? Lolololol, we have an army of them!

You will never find more unique creatures or settings than in Studio Ghibli movies. Every one of them is unfamiliar, whimsical, and gorgeous. Think outside the box when creating worlds. Use a setting that you've never seen anywhere else. Ditch the traditional set of fantasy creatures and dream up your own! If you want to read some books with crazy but amazing worlds, I've got you covered. The Phantom Tollbooth and The Discworld Chronicles are similar in their untraditional and quirky worlds.

3. Unexpectedness.

'No Face' is not what you think. Neither are the sky pirates or the talking fireplace or the big scary man in the bakery. In a Studio Ghibli movie, nothing is what you think. This unexpectedness is what makes the morals and character arcs of these movies so powerful. Even the endings are not what you expect. More often than not, the heroes and the villains will eventually come to an understanding, and everyone will be fighting for the same goal by the end.

You could call such turnouts just a kid's movie ending, and you might be right. But I find it very encouraging that in the end, some things become more important than just who you like and who you dislike. I like these turnouts because they make me hope for such peace in this world.

4. Make the ordinary extraordinary.

One of my favorite Studio Ghibli movies, Spirited Away, is set in a bathhouse. While that's not that normal of a thing to most of us, the characters know what it is on sight because it's such a normal concept to them. Another movie, My Neighbor Totoro, mainly happens at the characters' new house in the country. Up on Poppy Hill is 100% set in the real world, and it is still scrumptious.

Studio Ghibli movies also go out of their way to make anything look beautiful. The acorns sparkle. The coal gleams. The grass... I would gladly eat any of their fields of grass like a pony. If you've ever seen a waving field of grass in a Studio Ghibli movie, you know what I'm talking about.

And this, too, can be attained in novel writing. If you want something to look beautiful, make it sound beautiful. Tell the readers how the flowers glowed in colors as bright as jewels. Tell them how soft the fabric was and how it glistened in the sunlight. Tell them what they need to hear in order to see your world the way you do.

And through doing so, you will create magic.

What's your favorite movie? What's your favorite Studio Ghibli movie? Let's talk in the comments!