I’ll go first. Mine is that I can’t stand the Deadpool movies. They are self aware and self referential to an obnoxious degree. It’s like being continually reminded that I am in a movie. I swear the success of that movie has directly lead to every blockbuster having to have a joke every 30 seconds
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).
Totoro is a “slice of life” film. No real plot because life doesn’t always have adventures.
Think of it like how people watch streamers (like the ones that are about their life). You get to experience someone else’s life for a bit.
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.