Homer, Spirited Away

If you didn’t grow up with Studio Ghibli, I genuinely don’t know what to say to you. Not Spirited Away, not My Neighbor Totoro, not Ponyo—those films aren’t just anime, they’re a specific frequency of wonder that lands differently when you’re young enough to receive it without irony. The worlds breathe. The danger is real but never nihilistic. Something is always slightly wrong in a way that turns out to be the whole point.

So when The Simpsons devoted a couch gag to a full Ghibli tribute—Homer wandering through lush hand-painted backgrounds, encountering soft creature-things, the Springfield family rendered in that unmistakable warm-pastel aesthetic—it hit the right nerve immediately. Matt Groening’s show has been running on fumes for years, but occasionally it still finds a moment of genuine affection for something outside itself, and this was one of those. The tribute aired in early 2014 while Miyazaki was giving his farewell interviews, which gives it a weight it didn’t necessarily intend.

Homer in a Miyazaki world makes thematic sense too. He’s always been slightly out of place in Springfield’s cynicism—too accidental, too soft-hearted for the scheming around him. Drop him into a Ghibli landscape and his usual haplessness reads as wonder instead. The soot sprites would adopt him. Totoro would let him sleep under the camphor tree and not ask questions.

Whether it’s powered by deep reverence or just a particularly good writers’ room day doesn’t matter much. For ninety seconds, The Simpsons looked like it was made with the same care as the thing it was honoring, and that’s more than most television tributes manage.