orphaned protagonist

His films repeatedly center orphaned or abandoned children discovering agency and belonging, most notably in Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle.

His semi-autobiographical works like The 400 Blows deeply explore childhood abandonment and the search for parental connection with poignant humanism.

His cinema examines displaced and orphaned characters navigating fractured families and lost homes with meditative visual poetry, particularly in A Time to Live and a Time to Die.