Which Studio Ghibli film is based on a novel by Joan G. Robinson?
Answer
When Marnie Was There
When Marnie Was There is the Studio Ghibli film based on a novel by Joan G. Robinson.
The 2014 animated film was directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi and adapted from Robinson’s 1967 children’s novel of the same name. It follows Anna Sasaki, a withdrawn girl sent to stay with relatives in rural Hokkaido while recovering from health problems. There, she meets the mysterious Marnie at an old marsh-side mansion.
The film preserves the novel’s themes of loneliness, friendship, memory, and emotional healing, while relocating the story from England to Japan. Its supernatural elements are deliberately ambiguous for much of the film, encouraging viewers to question how Anna’s memories, imagination, and family history intersect.
The other options are based on different source material. Whisper of the Heart is an original Studio Ghibli story written by Hayao Miyazaki and based on a manga by Aoi Hiiragi. Only Yesterday adapts a manga by Hotaru Okamoto and Yuko Tone, while The Secret World of Arrietty draws from Mary Norton’s The Borrowers.