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by moondog on February 12, 2025 with No Comments

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NAME THE BRAND CLUE

This company was originally part of Standard Oil before that company was broken up. It’s brand name was first established in 1931. And later merged with Exxon in 1999.

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DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE

Ghibili
Which means “Desert Wind” in Libyan Arabic. It is also the name of a Japanese Anime production company Studio Ghibili founded in 1985 by Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata and producer Toshio Suzuki

Studio Ghibli

24 movies or 23 if you count Nasucaä which was created before Studio Ghibili was founded.

My Ghibli Films

Kiki’s Delivery Service: I can put this film on permanent replay. Kiki is such as a strong a sweet character that it made me want to have a daughter.

My Neighbor Totoro: The most Ghibili of Studio Ghibli films. Totoro has become the mascot for the studio. I saw poster for this when I first visited Hong Kong in 1992 and was obsessed with learning more about this film until I saw it as a bootleg DVD in the early 2000s.

Spirited Away: The biggest-grossing Studio Ghibili film and their first to win an Oscar. A love story to traditional Japanese spiritualism and traditions.

Howls Moving Castle: A sweeping magical epic with great voice acting by Mini Driver and Christian Bale

Grave of Fireflies: The first animated film to make me cry. It is a heartbreaking film about childhood and the misery of war. Was released as a double-feature with My Neighbor Totoro.

Ponyo: One of my least favorite Ghibli films. It’s a bit too childish and the English Dub is distracting: Liam Neeson just sounds like Liam Neeson in this film.

Nausucaä and the Valley of the Winds: The first Ghibili film (it predates the studio founding). I saw a mediocre American adaptation on video in the 1980’s and was blown away by the animation. Super ambitious and lush world-building film that rivals Dune in the original manga.

Castle in the Sky: One of Studio Ghibli’s oldest films and carries themes about technology, greed, and warfare that are more approachable than Nasucaä. It influences many of Ghibili’s later works like Howls Moving Catle and Princes Mananoke.

Princes Mananoke: One of the films I took my wife to see when we were dating. Our mutual love of anime was a strong indication to me of how compatible we were. This is an amazingly animated action film, fantasy, and historical drama.

Porco Rosso: A film about an alternative 1930’s universe where airplane designers and pilots compete in races and smuggling and the main character was inexplicably been transformed into a man-pig.

Pom Poko: A fantastical film about magical Japanese badgers and their attempts to adapt to human developers building modern homes in their forest.