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12 Principles Of Animation: Studio Ghibli

2 min readSep 18, 2023

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The Wonderful World of Ghibli

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In my previous blog, I covered a few rules of the Principles of Animation using Steven Universe’s episode, “Change Your Mind.” Today I will be using the famous Studio Ghibli films to showcase examples of Principles of Animation. The feature film I will be using will be Mizayaki’s “Castle In The Sky” and “Princess Mononoke.”

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CREDIT: WILLIAM LUNA ON VIMEO (131984622)

In the beginning of Castle In The Sky, when falling out the sky, Sheeta’s necklace helps her float down safely to ground, where Pazu catches her. From a point of view shot, we see how the necklace has an eerie teal glow when activated, how it’s animated and how Sheeta is animated with the necklace. From there we can see how differently Sheeta’s clothes, hair and necklace is animated in parts. The necklace is slower than the clothes’ animation, while the hair moves differently as well. This also pops up with Pazu, when he tries to lift Sheeta, you see how his hat doesn’t stick on his head, not following through with his animation, having it’s own animation.

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CREDIT: WILLIAM LUNA ON VIMEO (131984622)

In Princess Mononoke, the animation principle of staging is consistent through out the movie. In the GIF below, if we use the rule of thirds, you can see how San while cutting the plant is on the right, not directly in the middle as that would be far too distracting and this applies to the forest spirits as they stay on the left side of the screen, not the direct middle.

STAGING EXAMPLE FROM PRINCESS MONONOKE

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