A caution before the list. “Inspired by” is a soft phrase doing heavy lifting all over the internet. Ghibli's art departments research widely and then invent; a film's town is usually a composite. Where the studio or its staff have said something on the record, I say so. Where it is inference, I label it as inference.
Reasonably documented
Sayama Hills, Saitama — My Neighbor Totoro
The wooded hills on Tokyo's north-western edge are the landscape Miyazaki knew, and a conservation trust there has for decades used the film's association to raise money for buying up woodland. This connection is public, longstanding and endorsed by the studio's involvement in the trust. If you want to walk in a landscape the film is about, this is the honest answer.
Stockholm and Visby, Sweden — Kiki's Delivery Service
The staff took a research trip to Sweden, and the seaside city of Koriko is built from Stockholm's old town and the walled town of Visby on Gotland, with Mediterranean and Adriatic elements mixed in. It is a European city that does not exist, assembled from ones that do.
Colmar and Alsace, France — Howl's Moving Castle
The half-timbered market town in the film draws on Alsace, and Colmar in particular is the town most often named by the production. Walking its old quarter is a genuinely uncanny experience if you know the film well.
Yakushima, Kagoshima — Princess Mononoke
The moss forests of Yakushima, a subtropical island of ancient cedars and near-constant rain, were used as reference for the forest of the Deer God. The island's own tourism has leaned on this for years; the connection is well attested.
Tomonoura, Hiroshima — Ponyo
Miyazaki stayed in this small port town on the Inland Sea while developing the film, and the harbour geography shows. Of everywhere on this list, it is the least changed by attention.
Tama New Town, Tokyo — Pom Poko
Not an inspiration so much as a subject. The film is explicitly about the hillside development west of Tokyo, and the raccoon dogs are losing that specific forest to those specific bulldozers.
Repeated, but disputed or denied
Jiufen, Taiwan — Spirited Away
The most persistent claim on the internet. The hillside town's red lanterns and stepped alleys do look like the film, and it has built a substantial tourist economy on the resemblance. Miyazaki and the studio have denied it. Both things are true at once: the town is worth visiting and the connection is not one the filmmakers claim.
The bathhouse
Several Japanese buildings are named as “the” bathhouse — a hot spring inn in Nagano, a famous public bath in Ehime, a 1930s hotel banquet complex in Tokyo. The honest position is that the design is a composite of Japanese bathhouse and inn architecture, with the Meiji-era open-air architecture museum in Koganei, which Miyazaki is documented as visiting often, doing more of the work than any single hotel. The museum connection is the well-supported one.
“The village from — ”
Search results will offer you a definite real-world original for almost any location in any Ghibli film. Assume composite until shown otherwise. The films are researched, not photographed.
If you are in Tokyo anyway
- Inokashira Park, Mitaka and Kichijōji. The park around the museum, worth an afternoon on its own merits.
- The open-air architecture museum in Koganei. Relocated historic buildings, walkable in an afternoon, and the closest thing to standing inside Ghibli's reference library.
- Sayama Hills. A train ride and a walk, and completely undramatic in the best way.
None of these will feel like a film set, which is the point. What they will do is show you the raw material the art departments were working from, and that changes how the films look afterwards.