Yuriko Ishida · Film

Pom Poko

Isao Takahata · 1994

Pom Poko follows a colony of shapeshifting tanuki in the hills outside Tokyo as they organize, and ultimately fail, to stop a suburban development project from destroying their forest home across three decades. Isao Takahata wrote and directed for Studio Ghibli, drawing on Japanese bake-danuki folklore and crediting several folklorists and illustrators for the tanuki's designs and lore. The film topped Japan's box office in 1994, taking in ¥4.47 billion, and won the Grand Prix at Annecy the following year.

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Princess Mononoke

Hayao Miyazaki · 1997

Princess Mononoke follows Ashitaka, a young prince cursed by a demonized boar god, as he travels west and becomes caught in the war between Lady Eboshi's ironworks town and the animal gods defending their forest, including San, a girl raised by wolves. Hayao Miyazaki wrote and directed the film for Studio Ghibli after nearly two decades of development, using limited computer-generated imagery alongside hand-drawn animation for the first time in his work. Marketed by producer Toshio Suzuki in the largest advertising campaign Japan had seen for a film at that point, it became the country's highest-grossing release and the first Ghibli film given a wide international release, through a Disney-brokered deal that handed its English dub to novelist Neil Gaiman.