Yes ! Ponyo was great !
And grave of the fireflies…i watched it again 2 weeks ago…and cried so much… 
I have to admit I don’t really understand what it is so many people love about japanise anime type cartoons etc. (please don’t shoot me!! 
Just because I don’t personally understand doesn’t mean I don’t respect it! 
I guess it’s just not for me 
)
Waits for the flying tomatoes to stop Anyway, I googled this studio and saw it was this kind of japanese animation (yes, yes, it’s a bit of a prejudice I know! ) and my face went 
BUT
I decided to click on the film list and guess what, the one japanese cartoon that I REALLY thought was fantastic appeared at the end and made my face go 
(it’s Spirited Away, btw 
)
So, conclusion to this post? I uh… I don’t know. 
I loved Spirited Away, though 
It’s a storytelling medium, that’s all. Although, I guess when so many people are using it, that means a lot of stories are being told with it, and not all of those stories are necessarily fresh or thoughtful or fun. Most will just be ripping off one another, or becoming lazy with the medium-- sloppy, at best safe, never aiming for either perfect or revolutionary. (Whoa, did that one flying tomato literally fly, like with wings? does RC)
Yeah… Studio Ghilbi is not one of those. fangirls My top three favorites in order are Grave of the Fireflies (but I don’t watch the it anymore unless I’m feeling very very masochistic, it’s beautiful but totally heartwrenching,) Princess Mononoke (whose environmental message is to James Cameron’s Avatar as a war veteran is to the pretentious doo-doo head who wears fatigues to Neighborhood Watch meetings,) and Spirited Away.
Honorable mention-- Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea. Turns the Little Mermaid upside-down with just two lines:
“But if the boy doesn’t truly love her, Ponyo will turn into sea foam!”
“That’s where we all came from, dear.”
Yay! Studio Ghibli films are both trippy and fascinating. I’ve seen all but Grave of the Fireflies - I hear it’s a masterpiece, but I’m never in the right mood for it. I think my favorite’s still Spirited Away, though Kiki’s Delivery Service was the first I saw from the studio, and it captured my 7-year-old heart.
Miyazaki actually came to my campus over the summer, but I was out of town. The imagination he puts into all his works astounds me.
Oh I understand you can be sceptic about anime movies, because a lot of them are not really worth watching when you are older than 20…
But Studio Ghibli is special. Miyazaki and his fellow artists are more independant than any other studio, so their movie reflect a profund love of nature and also meditation (try to dowload “mimi o sumaseba”/“whispers of the heart” or “only yesterday”). One of the older but best animated is “Kiki delivery service” it’s so beautiful to watch and I like the heroins of Miyazaki. It’s far from all the clichés that we can have in anime or also animated comics.
I bought the complete Ghibli movies set in import China and it works good. It has problems on the PS2, but with the PS3 it’s ok.
Best one are, imo :
*Kiki delivery service
*Spirited Away
*Whisper of the heart
I also like Princess mononoke but it’s not the best for me. Ponyo is a must-watch too, but I didn’t really get some parts at the end. But fully hand-animated should convince you how independant Studio Ghibli is !
Without Studio Ghibli, the anime-land will lose a lot of quality…but you can watch Death Note for example, it’s one of the few high quality manga ^^
Totoro!
I was obsessed in fourth grade.
I brought the movie in for us to watch in one of our end of month reward parties… but we never finished. 
Oh and spirited away creeped me out, but that was also in fourth grade.
I saw Castle in the Sky when I was about three and wondered for years if it was a film I’d actually seen, or something that I’d dreamt. I rediscovered it when Spirited Away came out, and had a bit of a momen, it has to be said.
It’s still my favourite, but Totoro is officially the sweetest movie ever made. Bought it for my friend’s two-year old daughter knowing she’d watch it every day for a year and it would drive him up the wall. She did and it did.