Studio Ghibli Trivia
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97 free Studio Ghibli trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
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.
30 of 97 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The word 'ghibli' that Miyazaki picked for the studio's name originally refers to what?
A hot Saharan wind
A hot Saharan wind is the meaning, and plane lover Miyazaki knew it too as the name Italian pilots gave their wartime scouting aircraft.
Q 02Before becoming Ghibli's producer, Toshio Suzuki edited which anime magazine?
Animage
Animage was the magazine, and Suzuki kept working for its publisher alongside his early film work, only joining Ghibli full-time in 1989.
Q 03Which studio animated Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984) before Studio Ghibli existed?
Topcraft
Topcraft animated it, the same studio that drew Rankin/Bass's The Hobbit and The Last Unicorn for American audiences.
Q 04Which 1986 film was the first one animated by Studio Ghibli itself?
Castle in the Sky
Castle in the Sky drew about 775,000 cinemagoers, fewer than Nausicaä's 915,000 two years earlier, which left Miyazaki and Suzuki disappointed.
Q 05Pazu's mining town was inspired by Miyazaki's 1984 visit to which country during a miners' strike?
Wales
Wales was the country, and Miyazaki admired how the striking miners battled to save their way of life, a solidarity he poured into the film.
Q 06Which Takahata film shared a 1988 double bill with Totoro's debut in Japanese cinemas?
Grave of the Fireflies
Grave of the Fireflies drew on Takahata's own memories of fleeing a US air raid on Okayama at nine, running barefoot through the night with his sister.
Q 07Satsuki and Mei's father, Tatsuo Kusakabe, has what job in the 1988 film with the Catbus?
University lecturer
University lecturer Tatsuo was voiced in Japanese by copywriter Shigesato Itoi, the writer behind Nintendo's Mother video games.
Q 08Takahata's 1988 story of the siblings Seita and Setsuko is set in which bombed Japanese city?
Kobe
Kobe was the siblings' city, and in 2020 a monument partly funded by donations went up near the real pond where author Nosaka had sheltered.
Q 09Which real Japanese candy brand fills the tin Setsuko treasures in Takahata's 1988 war film?
Sakuma drops
Sakuma drops were the candy, first sold in 1908, and red-tin maker Sakuma Seika shut down in January 2023, citing falling sales and soaring costs.
Q 10The Seita and Setsuko film was excluded from Disney's Ghibli deal because it was made for which publisher?
Shinchosha
Shinchosha had published Nosaka's original story, and in July 2025 the film it produced became the first Ghibli feature streamed in Japan.
Q 11Kiki's Delivery Service adapts a 1985 novel by which Japanese author?
Eiko Kadono
Eiko Kadono wrote it, and the title's word for delivery, takkyubin, is a trademark of Yamato Transport, the courier firm that helped produce the film.
Q 12Which comedian voiced the cat Jiji in Disney's 1998 English dub of Kiki's Delivery Service?
Phil Hartman
Phil Hartman voiced Jiji, one of his last roles, and the dub reached home video in September 1998, months after his death that May.
Q 13Porco Rosso began life as a short in-flight film commissioned by which airline?
Japan Airlines
Japan Airlines got a film pitched for tired businessmen on long flights, which grew to 93 minutes and debuted on its routes 17 days before cinemas.
Q 21In 1997 Princess Mononoke broke the Japanese box-office record held by which Hollywood film?
E.T.
E.T. had held the record for 15 years, but Princess Mononoke's reign was brief, as Titanic overtook it shortly afterward.
Q 22What 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 23Chihiro's parents are turned into what after gorging on food in the abandoned town?
Pigs
Pigs are what they become, and the girl who watches it happen was modeled on a friend's ten-year-old daughter who visited Miyazaki each summer.
Q 14Porco Rosso's hero says he would rather be a pig than become what?
A fascist
A fascist is what Porco refuses to become when his old comrade Ferrarin urges him to rejoin the Italian air force.
Q 15Takahata's Pom Poko (1994) follows which shapeshifting animals fighting a Tokyo development?
Raccoon dogs
Raccoon dogs, the tanuki of folklore, lose the fight, and those who can still transform end up living among humans as people.
Q 16Whisper of the Heart (1995) was the only feature directed by which Ghibli animator, who died in 1998?
Yoshifumi Kondo
Yoshifumi Kondo was the studio's hoped-for successor to Miyazaki and Takahata, but he died suddenly of an aortic dissection at 47.
Q 17Shizuku spends Whisper of the Heart writing Japanese lyrics for which John Denver song?
Country Roads
Country Roads got its real Japanese lyrics from producer Toshio Suzuki's teenage daughter Mamiko, and Miyazaki then reworked them.
Q 18In Princess Mononoke, the girl San was raised by which animals?
Wolves
Wolves raised her, and because those wolves are mononoke, or spirits, other people call her Princess Mononoke.
Q 19Princess Mononoke is set during which period of Japanese history?
Muromachi
Muromachi was the era, chosen partly because it was when people's relationship with nature shifted and they began to feel they could control it.
Q 20Which fantasy novelist wrote the English-language script for Princess Mononoke's Miramax release?
Neil Gaiman
Neil Gaiman wrote the script, and the film came out uncut even though Harvey Weinstein had pushed for cuts.
Q 24Spirited 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 25Spirited Away's 19-year reign as Japan's highest-grossing film ended in 2020 thanks to which anime?
Demon Slayer
Demon Slayer: Mugen Train took the record in 73 days, opening in a pandemic lull when cinemas were open but few rival films were showing.
Q 26Miyazaki's 2004 film about the wizard Howl adapts a 1986 novel by which British author?
Diana Wynne Jones
Diana Wynne Jones wrote it, and the idea came from a boy on a school visit who asked her to write a book called The Moving Castle.
Q 27Which Toei director was originally chosen to direct the 2004 Howl film before leaving the project?
Mamoru Hosoda
Mamoru Hosoda's version was scrapped, so he returned to Toei and later directed The Girl Who Leapt Through Time.
Q 28Ponyo was loosely inspired by which Hans Christian Andersen tale?
The Little Mermaid
The Little Mermaid was the spark, and Ponyo's real name, Brunhilde, comes from Wagner's Die Walküre, which Miyazaki played while planning the film.
Q 29Ponyo's cliffside fishing village was inspired by which real town in the Seto Inland Sea?
Tomonoura
Tomonoura was where Miyazaki spent two months in 2005 reading Soseki's The Gate, whose hero Sosuke, living below a cliff, lent the boy his name.
Q 30Arrietty (2010) is based on which 1952 children's novel by Mary Norton?
The Borrowers
The Borrowers was the novel, which Miyazaki had hoped to film about 40 years earlier, a plan that came to nothing until he revived it in 2008.