Hot take: Studio Ghibli's art style got worse after Spirited Away, not better
I watched Nausicaa again last night and the hand-painted backgrounds had way more soul than the CGI-heavy look in Earwig and the Witch, so does anyone else think they lost something when they started leaning on digital coloring after 2001?
Hold up, Earwig and the Witch is a bad example since it was a weird 3D experiment even Ghibli fans hate. But stuff like The Boy and the Heron still has gorgeous hand-drawn animation that's way better than anything from the 90s.
The animation in The Boy and the Heron is amazing, but it reminds me how everything's getting more polished yet somehow less memorable... I noticed it with my own kids, like how they watch these super clean modern cartoons but can't name a single character the way I still remember Kiki or Totoro. Feels like we're trading charm and character for technical perfection in a lot of areas lately.