Studio Ghibli broke into big box office hit territory with Hayao Miyazaki’s 1989 cozy movie Kiki’s Delivery Service. As friend of the show Garrett Arseneault and Tristan discuss, the film’s vibes are impeccable, with classic “I want to go to there” scenery, but they contain a depth of commentary on growing up, found family, and young womanhood.

David Blakeslee, host of the Criterion Reflections podcast, is used to thinking seriously about often overwhelming films. That comes in handy in his conversation with Tristan about Isao Takahata’s 1988 masterpiece Grave of the Fireflies, a stunning and moving work of art that many praise and proclaim they’ll never watch again in equal measure.

Hayao Miyazaki’s 1988 film My Neighbor Totoro is now an animation milestone and famed title in the Studio Ghibli catalog, although as writer and journalist Caroline Delbert and Tristan discuss, its success was not immediately assured. Their conversation attempts to explore the rich depths of the amazingly pleasant movie, a film so revered and analyzed in so many different ways.

Isao Takahata’s 1987 live-action documentary The Story of Yanagawa’s Canals is probably Studio Ghibli’s most obscure feature. As James Willey (@moviegoodormoviebad on TikTok and YouTube) and Tristan discuss, however, this seemingly uncharacteristic Ghibli film, only the studio’s second, still carries a lot of beautiful and recurrent themes for the director.

Shawn Hall, behind the @shawntokssilents TikTok account and The Everyday Cinephile, and Tristan both admire the beauty and deeper themes of the first official Studio Ghibli work, Hayao Miyazaki’s 1986 film Castle in the Sky. While a recurring disconnect from some of the characters and action doesn’t dominate the conversation, they commiserate on why this feels left out of the extremely warm feelings felt for Miyazaki’s other movies.

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind is a thorny film without easy answers, as film historian and cultural critic Paul T. Klein and Tristan find. Their conversation does, however, attempt to plumb the depths of the pacifist, environmental, and feminist messages woven throughout the arresting images of Hayao Miyazaki’s 1984 classic.

Paul writes at howtoreadmovies.com and co-hosts the Cold War Cinema podcast.

Listeners to this show will soon hear a lot of quotations from Rayna Denison’s book Studio Ghibli: An Industrial History. Although Isao Takahata’s 1982 film Gauche the Cellist still resides in the pre-Ghibli history, Rayna’s great expertise on the director’s work is brought to bear on this conversation about this gorgeously animated movie with a classical music focus.

Journalist Andrew Osmond has made a career of writing about animation and anime, including the books BFI Film Classics: Spirited Away and 100 Animated Feature Films. So it makes sense that Tristan came upon his work, specifically Andrew’s review of the 1981 film directed by Isao Takahata: Chie the Brat, which the two discuss as an underseen yet delightful gem of its director’s varied career.

Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro, Hayao Miyazaki's feature directorial debut, seems like the product of immaculate conception. But as friend of the show Austin Clark and Tristan discuss, Miyazaki's incredibly fluid and beautifully structured 1979 film is a great success based on over 15 years of television work.

Welcome to The Complete Catalog, a podcast for media deep dives! For this first season, host Tristan Ettleman and his guests explore the 30 films of Studio Ghibli (including some pre-history and shorts, TV shows, and other projects).

Friend of the show Trevor Bermingham inaugurates The Complete Catalog by joining Tristan to talk about The Great Adventure of Horus, Prince of the Sun, future Ghibli co-founder Isao Takahata’s feature directorial debut. This apparently simple 1968 film is an ambitious work of its time and the two find many layers to discuss in this “prehistoric” Ghibli film.