Hot take: Studio Ghibli's art style got worse after Spirited Away, not better

I watched Nausicaa again last night and the hand-painted backgrounds had way more soul than the CGI-heavy look in Earwig and the Witch, so does anyone else think they lost something when they started leaning on digital coloring after 2001?

2 comments

2 Comments

davis.diana7d ago

Hold up, Earwig and the Witch is a bad example since it was a weird 3D experiment even Ghibli fans hate. But stuff like The Boy and the Heron still has gorgeous hand-drawn animation that's way better than anything from the 90s.

jason_kelly86d ago

The animation in The Boy and the Heron is amazing, but it reminds me how everything's getting more polished yet somehow less memorable... I noticed it with my own kids, like how they watch these super clean modern cartoons but can't name a single character the way I still remember Kiki or Totoro. Feels like we're trading charm and character for technical perfection in a lot of areas lately.