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There's nothing great about Studio Ghibli movies, they have appreciable hand-drawn effort but that isn't what makes a movie.
Alright this one got me. I can't imagine some of the stories doing absolutely nothing for a viewer and them thinking they are so-so.
I mean some of them show their age a bit and ok some of them rehash ideas from preceding ones, but it's hard to think of any Miyazaki movie that did nothing for me at all.
One of the most recent ones I watched was Whisper of the Heart. It can be summed up as "girl meets a cute guy, girl wants to be an author, writes about a cat in a parallel universe, finds an antique shop, random proposal at the end", it was like watching a clipshow. I remember reading reviews for Totoro and them trying really hard to beat around the bush with "ah it doesn't have a cohesive plot, buuuut..." and then the rest of the review, almost like they didn't care because it was Studio Ghibli. I've seen movies panned for that (e.g. Alita Battle Angel or Spiderman 2).
That sounds tedious.
Studio Ghibli today is a pale shadow of what it was in the 80s and 90s.
Most of the new stuff they did has been repeated over and over again to the point that they are no longer 'new' to a modern audience. Half of modern Japanese pop-culture, and a significant share of modern Chinese and Western pop culture borrow from their three early films (Cagliostro, Nausicaa and Laputa). Nausicaa is probably the single most influential animated movie in history.
To fully appreciate Totoro, you have to watch Grave of the Fireflies first.
All of them? No. But there are so many great things in them you can't just bury them away like Spirited away, your neighbour Totoro...
You don't like them? I understand that totally, but they are masterpieces.
Like I just hate the Bolero and think Mosart is 'meh' I guess (toccata&fugue in D minor by Bach, now that rocks!).
I mean in general, not really all of them (for example, Spirited Away gets honorable mention on every list). I remember reviewers for Totoro trying their hardest to not spotlight the fact it has such a jumbled plot when movies have been panned for that before. A masterpiece is supposed to impart something onto someone, but except for Spirited Away and arguably Marnie, my main reaction was little more than "well now I can say I saw it".
Grave of the fireflies left a deep impression with me. I recently saw a bunch of them with my girlfriend and I've come to the conclusion that most are nice looking long TV show episodes. Which is fine for what the are.
Right, outside, lets fight!
Those movies are amazing, maybe what you're missing is that the age of the main character is the age of the target audience.
Being all their ages didn't change a lot for me (not sure how normal that is amongst those age groups). Except for Totoro which I watched when I was four if I remember correctly, I was roughly a preteen to teen when I watched all of them (or all the ones I watched, which is all but three) up to The Boy and the Heron (which just came out, I'm an adult now) which would only put me out of range with Ponyo and Porco Rosso when I watched those. Most people have a good sense of feeling for a story that adds up. I was little when I watched Totoro and little me had to stop myself from getting distracted from the movie itself.
I loved Spirited Away but everything else Ghibli did just grates.