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A Visual Celebration of Miyazaki’s Weird Little Guys

A few weeks ago, I posted about the hundreds of stills from their animated movies that Studio Ghibli has made available for free download. Since I’m a big fan of the weird little guys director Hayao Miyazaki loves to put in his films (e.g. the kodama in Princess Mononoke1 and Spirited Away’s soot sprites), I thought it would be cool to pull some images from the Ghibli archive featuring these lovable little freaks.

a still from a Studio Ghibli movie featuring Miyazaki's weird little guys

a still from a Studio Ghibli movie featuring Miyazaki's weird little guys

a still from a Studio Ghibli movie featuring Miyazaki's weird little guys

a still from a Studio Ghibli movie featuring Miyazaki's weird little guys

a still from a Studio Ghibli movie featuring Miyazaki's weird little guys

a still from a Studio Ghibli movie featuring Miyazaki's weird little guys

a still from a Studio Ghibli movie featuring Miyazaki's weird little guys

a still from a Studio Ghibli movie featuring Miyazaki's weird little guys

And an honorable mention to this frame from Porco Rosso:

a still from a Studio Ghibli movie featuring Miyazaki's weird little guys

The weird little guys category generally doesn’t apply to humans, but this image of little kids crawling all over a pig man’s airplane certainly classifies as an unusual swarm.

  1. I bought a shirt with a kodama on it after seeing Princess Mononoke in 1999. At some point, I got rid of the shirt — why the hell did I do that?! It was very close to this shirt on Etsy selling for $288…the collar/sleeve color was a dark blue or black on mine.

Comments  4

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Lahsbee

The kodama from Princess Mononoke are probably my favorites, but it's hard to argue against the sassy energy of the soot sprites.

Philip Riley

ā¤ļøā¤ļøā¤ļø

Jordan Warshavsky

Post of 2025!

Great curation. Hope the shirt finds it way back to you on this timeline.

Reply in this thread

Ian Smith

Soot sprites in My Neighbor Totoro.

I’m also a fan of these weird little characters.

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