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50 free Studio Ghibli trivia questions with answers. Studio Ghibli is the rare film studio whose name alone sells tickets, and this quiz covers the whole story. Fifty questions run from the 1985 founding and the desert wind the studio is named after, through every major feature from Castle in the Sky to The Boy and the Heron, and out to the museum in Mitaka, the park in Aichi and the Disney, GKIDS and Netflix deals that carried the films around the world. It starts easy (what Chihiro's parents turn into, who raised San) and climbs to the details only Ghibli obsessives know: which airline commissioned Porco Rosso, which director walked off Howl's Moving Castle, and which candy tin Setsuko clutches. Trivia hosts and quiz-night organisers can lift the whole set for free. Every answer was checked against the films' own Wikipedia entries and the pages on the studio, its founders and its composer, and each question carries its source. No fan-forum guesses, no recycled listicle errors.
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Q 01In what year was Studio Ghibli founded?
1985
The founding date was June 15, 1985, a year after Nausicaä proved a Miyazaki feature could pay its way.
Q 02The word 'ghibli' that Miyazaki picked for the studio's name originally refers to what?
A hot Saharan wind
The Italian word comes from Libyan Arabic; Miyazaki liked the idea of blowing a whirlwind through a stagnant anime industry.
Q 03Before becoming Ghibli's producer, Toshio Suzuki edited which anime magazine?
Animage
Suzuki went on to run the studio itself, becoming president in 2005 and later its general manager.
Q 04Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984) predates the studio. Which house produced it?
Topcraft
Ghibli was effectively built out of the Topcraft team once the film succeeded, which is why it is usually counted as an honorary Ghibli picture.
Q 05Which 1986 film was the first one animated by Studio Ghibli itself?
Castle in the Sky
It played in Japan on a bill with two episodes of Sherlock Hound and drew about 774,000 viewers in its two-week run.
Q 06Pazu's mining town in Laputa was inspired by Miyazaki's 1984 trip to which country during a miners' strike?
Wales
He was moved by the miners' fight for their communities, and the film's workers-versus-military tone came straight from that visit.
Q 07Which Takahata film shared a 1988 double bill with Totoro's debut in Japanese cinemas?
Grave of the Fireflies
A children's fantasy paired with one of the bleakest war films ever made is still cited as the strangest double feature in Japanese cinema.
Q 08Satsuki and Mei's father, Tatsuo Kusakabe, has what job in the 1988 film with the Catbus?
University professor
The family moves to the countryside to be near the hospital where the girls' mother is recovering.
Q 09Takahata's 1988 story of the siblings Seita and Setsuko is set in which bombed Japanese city?
Kobe
It comes from Akiyuki Nosaka's semi-autobiographical 1967 short story; Nosaka lost his own sister to malnutrition after the war.
Q 10The tin of sweets Setsuko treasures throughout the film is a real Japanese brand. Which one?
Sakuma drops
The fruit-drop tins are still sold, and the film's release sent sales of the retro packaging climbing.
Q 11The Seita and Setsuko film was excluded from Disney's Ghibli deal because it was made for which publisher?
Shinchosha
The same quirk kept it off Netflix's global Ghibli line-up in 2020, so it is often the hardest Ghibli film to stream.
Q 12Kiki's Delivery Service adapts a 1985 novel by which Japanese author?
Eiko Kadono
The author disliked the film's changes so much the project nearly stalled until she visited the studio and relented.
Q 13Which comedian voiced the cat Jiji in the 1998 Disney dub, released after his death?
Phil Hartman
Kirsten Dunst voiced Kiki; later reissues trimmed some of Hartman's ad-libbed lines to stay closer to the Japanese original.
Q 21Which fantasy novelist wrote the English-language script for Princess Mononoke's Miramax release?
Neil Gaiman
Ghibli's contract forbade any cuts, and legend has it Suzuki sent Harvey Weinstein a katana with the message 'No cuts'.
Q 22Princess Mononoke broke Japan's all-time box-office record in 1997. Which Hollywood film had held it?
E.T.
The new record lasted only months; Titanic sailed past it the following winter.
Q 23What name does the witch Yubaba give Chihiro when she takes her real one in Spirited Away?
Sen
Sen is simply another reading of the first character of Chihiro's name; forgetting the original would trap her forever.
Q 14Porco Rosso began life as a short in-flight film commissioned by which airline?
Japan Airlines
It grew into a feature anyway; the airline still got first showings on its flights before the cinema release.
Q 15Complete Porco's most quoted line: 'Better a pig than a ...'
fascist
The line was revived as a protest slogan during Spain's 2023 elections, six decades after the film's fictional 1930s.
Q 16Takahata's Pom Poko (1994) follows which shapeshifting animals fighting a Tokyo development?
Raccoon dogs
It was Japan's top film of the year and its Oscar submission for Best Foreign Language Film, magical testicles and all.
Q 17Whisper of the Heart (1995) was the only feature directed by which Ghibli animator, who died in 1998?
Yoshifumi Kondo
He was widely seen as the heir to Miyazaki and Takahata, and his death at 47 is one reason both men kept working so long.
Q 18Shizuku spends Whisper of the Heart writing Japanese lyrics for which John Denver song?
Country Roads
Her joke version, 'Concrete Road', mocks her own suburb, and the real song bookends the film.
Q 19In Princess Mononoke, the girl San was raised by which animals?
Wolves
Her adoptive mother, the wolf goddess Moro, is voiced by Gillian Anderson in the English dub.
Q 20Princess Mononoke is set during which period of Japanese history?
Muromachi
Miyazaki chose the era so he could show Japan before rice farming and ironworks stripped the ancient forests.
Q 24Chihiro's parents are turned into what after gorging on food in the abandoned town?
Pigs
Miyazaki wrote the film for the ten-year-old daughter of a friend who visited his cabin every summer.
Q 25Spirited Away shared the 2002 Golden Bear at Berlin with which film?
Bloody Sunday
It then became the first hand-drawn, non-English-language film to win the Oscar for Best Animated Feature.
Q 26Spirited Away's 19-year reign as Japan's highest-grossing film ended in 2020 thanks to which anime?
Demon Slayer
Mugen Train did it in the middle of the pandemic, with cinemas at reduced capacity.
Q 27How much did Spirited Away gross in Japan?
¥31.68 billion
Its worldwide total eventually passed $380 million, and it stayed Japan's box-office champion for 19 years.
Q 28Miyazaki's 2004 film about the wizard Howl adapts a 1986 novel by which British author?
Diana Wynne Jones
Ghibli returned to the same author for Earwig and the Witch in 2020.
Q 29Which director from Toei was originally chosen to make the 2004 Howl film before quitting the project?
Mamoru Hosoda
He left after the studio rejected his ideas and went on to make Wolf Children and Mirai on his own terms.
Q 30Ponyo was loosely inspired by which Hans Christian Andersen tale?
The Little Mermaid
Miyazaki read it at nine and never accepted its premise that the mermaid had no soul, so he gave his fish girl a happier deal.