The 5 Worst Studio Ghibli Movies, Ranked

Studio Ghibli is often considered a master studio of classic films, producing countless movies that can easily be enjoyed decades after their initial debuts. Spirited Away, for example, is still considered a favorite of millions of anime fans across the globe, despite having premiered over 2 decades ago. Ghibli films simply hold an unparalleled magic, and talents like Hayao Miyazaki are able to capture a timeless charm and a seductive sense of nostalgia in every production they direct.

However, it’s films like Spirited Away that set a certain standard for Ghibli. Some of the studio’s productions, even if they still possess qualities typical of a Ghibli film, haven’t always met the expectations of fans who’ve fallen in love with Ghibli’s brand of cinematic charisma. These movies tend to fall short on the delight and magic that has made the appeal of Spirited Away and other titles so enduring over the years.

Related

All 24 Studio Ghibli Films, Ranked

Whether crafting endearing tales or epic pieces of fantasy, Studio Ghibli has produced some of the greatest animated films of all time.

5

Porco Rosso was a Charming Film That Missed the Mark

Written and Directed by Hayao Miyazaki

A historical adventure set in the aftermath of World War I, Ghibli’s Porco Rosso is a thrilling tale about an ace pilot who becomes the infamous bounty hunter known as Porco Rosso—a name he dons after falling victim to a curse that turned him into a pig. When his precious plane is damaged, Porco reluctantly hires the young and talented Fio Piccolo to handle the repairs and modifications. And her spunk and talent turned out to be everything Poroc needed to face the man who gunned him and his plane down in the first place.

Released in July of 1992, Porco Rosso earned around $1.3 million in international box offices, becoming one of the lowest-grossing films to come out of Studio Ghibli. It has also become the legendary Hayao Miyazaki’s worst-performing film to date, regardless of the fact that it has gained a decent fanbase that appreciates its story.

Related

This Underappreciated Director Helped Studio Ghibli Take Over The Anime Film Industry

Hayao Miyazaki is the face of Studio Ghibli, but this other founder is the director behind two of Studio Ghibli’s most celebrated films.

Although an enjoyable film in its own right, with its charismatic main protagonist and equally charming female lead, Porco Rosso‘s tone felt different from what is generally found appealing about most Ghibli films. The movie wasn’t meant for children, as it contained more adult themes. Still, as something geared more toward an adult audience, the story felt lacking.

Porco Rosso’s plot felt too simplistic. A film doesn’t necessarily need to have a complicated storyline to captivate older viewers, but the development of side characters like Fio and the behavior of the sky pirates felt one-dimensional and childish. There was also a supposed romance between Porco and Fio, but there was little to no romantic tension between the pair, which made the kiss during the finale feel as though it came out of left field.

Porco Rosso

Release Date

July 18, 1992

Runtime

93 minutes

Stream

4

Pom Poko is a Cultural Comedy With Shocking Elements

Written and Directed by Isao Takahata

Another addition to Ghibli’s collection of films that champion nature, Pom Poko is a comedic story with a heavy message about the dangers of humanity’s ever-expanding civilization and how the growth of cities often comes at the cost of the natural world. This conflict is presented in the point of view of tanuki clans, who are losing adequate territory and have their livelihoods threatened by the borders of Tokyo encroaching on their lands.

Pom Poko is a Studio Ghibli original, released in the summer of 1994 and earning about $1.2 million at the box office. Despite being an award-winning production, it is still one of the studio’s lowest-grossing movies (especially in comparison to Spirited Away’s $347 million), mostly due to the cultural barriers when it reached audiences outside of Japan.

Related

Pom Poko is Studio Ghibli’s Bleakest Take on the Environment

Pom Poko’s take on environmentalism leaves a sliver of hope, but humanity’s own inability to heed the film’s warning is the scariest part.

Many platforms have rated Pom Poko as a generally safe family film, with MyAnimeList listing children as the movie’s demographic. However, not only are there depictions of (cartoonish) violence as well as on-screen deaths that aren’t exactly suitable for younger audiences, but the tanuki are also shown transforming an inappropriate part of their anatomy to aid them in their fierce battles against mankind.

Even if watched without the presence of younger viewers, many Ghibli fans in the West found this aspect of the film bizarre. The tanuki and their abilities are a big part of Japanese folklore, and, similar to the Monogatari series, it’s difficult for Western audiences to appreciate the full breadth of Pom Poko’s comedy and significance without being familiar with the culture or language.

Pom Poko

Release Date

July 16, 1994

Runtime

119 Minutes

Stream

• 

• 

3

Tales from Earthsea was a Listless Adaptation

Directed by Goro Miyazaki, Story by Ursula Le Guin

Tales from Earthsea is a loose adaptation of Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea literary series, detailing a world filled with the epic conflicts of dragons, mages, and the power of true names. The main protagonist, Arren, is a prince fleeing from his troubles as he begins traveling alongside an Archmage, Sparrowhawk, and eventually comes to meet a mysterious girl with a distinctive birthmark.

As the debut film of Goro Miyazaki (son of Hayao Miyazaki), Tales from the Earthsea reached no. 1 in the Japanese box offices during the first week of its release in July 2006 and became one of Studio Ghibli’s highest-grossing movies. But it also became one of the lowest-rated films for its poor retelling of a beloved fantasy novel series.

Related

How Studio Ghibli’s Tales From Earthsea Fails Ursula K. Le Guin’s Classic

Goro Miyazaki’s failure to adapt the source material well makes the Tales From Earthsea even more disappointing.

Tales from Earthsea was a disappointing adaptation that even the author of the source material did not appreciate. Fans claim that, although beautifully animated, Goro Miyazaki’s work butchered the fantastical tale written by Ursula Le Guin and tried to cram too much of the original novels into one film, creating a messy 2-hour movie with a plotline that was difficult to place.

Goro Miyazaki did introduce a very intriguing world that still earned the film love, but the build-up of the plot took up most of the run time. As a result, it was an almost insufferably long wait before the story finally picked up pace. The main protagonist, Arren, also wasn’t very proactive in his own story, becoming frustratingly compliant in a story that pulled him in whatever direction it needed.

2

Ocean Waves was a Lackluster Love Story

Directed by Tomomi Mochizuki, Written by Saeko Himuro and Keiko Niwa

Ocean Waves follows the perspective of Taku Morisaki as he reminisces about his experiences in the later years of high school, particularly the moments concerning his best friend, Yutaka, and a Tokyo girl named Rikako. Rikako is an academically gifted, athletic and phenomenally beautiful girl. The issue is that she has a personality that tends to gain her more enemies than allies. Though that didn’t stop Yutaka from falling for her and Taku from getting roped into her troublesome endeavors.

Released in May 1893, Ocean Waves became the worst-performing film to have come out of Studio Ghibli. It grossed less than $0.1 million in the U.S. box office. That is—in part—due to the film’s limited release, but this slice-of-life drama also falls on the short side when it comes to plot and the themes it was trying to study. It clocked in at only an hour and 12 minutes to tell a story that fails to capture the essence of youth and nostalgia.

Related

Every ’90s Studio Ghibli Film, Ranked

Founded in 1985, Studio Ghibli is a legendary anime studio with countless classics to its name. Here are Ghibli’s ’90s movies, ranked!

Ocean Waves possessed a cast of interesting personalities, but the story was largely uneventful and lacked excitement. The main characters have very little chemistry with one another, absent of the true romantic tension that would be expected of a film that was categorized as a romantic drama. The movie also feels as though it was cut short, ending at the moment when Taku finally realized he actually had feelings for Rikako the whole time.

The film did well in detailing Rikako’s family situation, showing how she was just a young girl who was deeply affected by her parents’ divorce. However, although relatable, she was never portrayed in any likable or positive light despite being the protagonist’s main love interest, which greatly contributed to audiences’ poor reception of the movie.

Ocean Waves

Release Date

October 7, 1994

Runtime

72 minutes

Stream

• 

• 

1

Earwig and the Witch was a Charmless Experiment

Directed by Goro Miyazaki, Story by Diana Wynne Jones

Earwig and the Witch is another Ghibli film adapting the works of Diana Wynne Jones, who also wrote the source material of Ghibli’s romantic classic, Howl’s Moving Castle. Directed by Goro Miyazaki, this 2021 movie is about an orphan girl named Aya who is dismayed to find out that she has been adopted by an actual witch. But she soon starts to realize that her new life may not be so bad, and that her new guardians might share more of a connection with her than she initially thought.

Earwig and the Witch was released at the tail end of 2020 and became Studio Ghibli’s first (and, so far, only) 3D-animated film. It only grossed at around $726,747 worldwide, partially due to the multiple shutdowns across the world in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. It debuted on HBO Max immediately after for home viewing, but it quickly fell to the bottom tier of Ghibli’s flops.

Related

10 Weirdest Studio Ghibli Movies, Ranked

With strange worlds, unique characters and bizarre story elements, these Studio Ghibli movies are the weirdest by far.

Due to the deviation from the acclaimed studio’s usual style of animation as well as Goro Miyazaki’s performance with Tales from Earthsea, Earwig and the Witch was already under heavy scrutiny even before its debut. Countless Ghibli fans found themselves missing Ghibli’s iconic 2-dimensional style, finding the experimental 3D animation to be a removal of the very thing that gives Ghibli films their unique essence.

The execution of Earwig and the Witch also did not offer the same sense of completion as many of Ghibli’s better-performing productions. It’s widely agreed that the finale of Aya’s tale felt abrupt, ending at the cusp of her adventure and cutting to the credits right after the appearance of her birth mother. This film was better suited as a pilot to a series rather than a single standalone film.