Children Who Chase Lost Voices (2011): Why Does It Feel So Ghibli-esque? – Makoto Shinkai’s Tale of Farewell

Makoto Shinkai’s Children Who Chase Lost Voices (Official Site) hit theaters in 2011 as his highly anticipated fourth animated feature. As a massive fan of his earlier, groundbreaking indie work, I naturally rushed to see it on the big screen.

However, within the first few minutes, as a parade of undeniably Ghibli-esque landscapes, character designs, and fantastical creatures flashed across the screen, I—like many others in the audience—found myself thinking, “Wait… what exactly am I watching?”

Today, we are going to tackle that exact question head-on: Why does this Makoto Shinkai film feel exactly like a Studio Ghibli movie?

These visual echoes and narrative tropes aren’t lazy rip-offs; they are woven into the film with a level of masterful precision that makes it completely obvious they are “intentional.” So, why did Shinkai feel psychologically and artistically compelled to make Children Who Chase Lost Voices in this specific, highly derivative style?

*This is a translated version. The original (Japanese) is available here.

The Burden of Legacy: Navigating “Ghibli-esque” Cinema

While Children Who Chase Lost Voices is overwhelmingly “Ghibli-esque,” it wasn’t the first high-profile anime to use that specific aesthetic as a psychological coping mechanism. That fascinating distinction actually belongs to Tales from Earthsea.

The First True “Ghibli-esque” Film: Tales from Earthsea

Released in 2006, Tales from Earthsea was a highly polarizing animated feature directed by Goro Miyazaki. While officially an adaptation of Ursula K. Le Guin’s legendary fantasy series, the film is actually a strange cinematic hybrid, heavily cannibalizing elements from Hayao Miyazaki’s own 1983 graphic novel, The Journey of Shuna (シュナの旅, in Japanese).

At the time of its release, the mere fact that Goro Miyazaki—Hayao’s estranged son—was sitting in the director’s chair was the biggest talking point in the anime industry. As a student watching it on opening day, I remember thinking with a bit of naive arrogance, “Seriously? Goro Miyazaki is directing this?”

When you watch Tales from Earthsea, you are bombarded with scenes, framing choices, and pacing that aggressively mimic past Ghibli masterpieces and other projects Hayao Miyazaki touched. And without a doubt, this mimicry was entirely intentional.

What was the psychological intent behind this? We can only theorize, but I firmly believe it was a matter of survival: “He had no choice but to confront himself.” Rather than completely rejecting the “Hayao Miyazaki” embedded in his DNA to artificially create a brand-new style, Goro needed to actively weaponize those inherited tropes to process his father’s overwhelming influence. The Goro Miyazaki of 2006 likely concluded that wrestling with those ghosts on screen was the only way he could authentically express himself and direct a film.

Channeling Earthsea: Confronting the Giants Within

Just as Goro Miyazaki needed a cinematic crucible to digest the “Hayao Miyazaki” within him, Director Makoto Shinkai found himself facing a very similar existential crisis.

When Children Who Chase Lost Voices was in production, the media was aggressively, relentlessly crowning Shinkai as the “Next Hayao Miyazaki.” While Shinkai undoubtedly thought, “I am not the next Miyazaki; I am my own artist,” he simultaneously harbored a massive, undeniable reverence for the Ghibli co-founder.

Trapped under the weight of those massive expectations and needing to evolve as a filmmaker, Shinkai seemingly decided to confront the “influences that inevitably lived inside him” head-on. He used the recognizable Ghibli aesthetic as a brilliant cinematic “scapegoat” to purge his creative system.

And by “scapegoat,” I mean the film isn’t just a Ghibli tribute. Shinkai emptied his entire vault of inspirations into this movie. You can spot grotesque creatures that perfectly mirror the “Future Humanity” from Kazuo Umezu’s terrifying classic manga The Drifting Classroom. There is a massive, ancient circular structure that feels ripped straight out of Stargate. In one fleeting, masterful display of animation, the antagonist Morisaki—who spends the whole film brooding like Muska from Castle in the Sky—suddenly moves with the frantic, elastic physical energy of Lupin III. There are likely dozens of other obscure homages buried in the frames that we haven’t even caught yet.

By blanketing the film in a widely recognizable Ghibli style, Shinkai was signaling to the audience, “You know what kind of movie this is,” while quietly, surgically weaving in tributes to all his other childhood heroes. In that sense, one could argue the film isn’t just “Ghibli-esque”—it is fundamentally “Tales from Earthsea-esque” in its psychological execution.

Ultimately, Children Who Chase Lost Voices was Shinkai’s “Tale of Farewell.” By vomiting all of these beloved, deeply ingrained influences onto the screen, he was executing a spectacular, public exorcism. I believe he was standing before the audience and saying, “To the masterworks that nurtured my soul: thank you. But I am saying ‘goodbye’ to you now so I can finally forge my own path. Farewell!“

The undeniable proof of this theory lies in his very next project: The Garden of Words (2013). It was a breathtaking, hyper-realistic, grounded drama entirely devoid of traditional sci-fi or fantasy tropes. Furthermore, Children marked the end of another massive era: it was his final collaboration with Tenmon. The composer who had provided the melancholic heartbeat for every single Shinkai film from Voices of a Distant Star through Children Who Chase Lost Voices stepped away, and Shinkai’s musical landscape evolved forever.

Children Who Chase Lost Voices was never a rip-off. It was a loud, beautiful “declaration of stepping into a new era,” shaking off the ghosts of the past to become the undisputed master he is today. At least, that is the cinematic truth I see when I watch it.

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