Mononoke is effectively a retelling of Nausicaa in which all the ambivalent stuff is made concrete. It's also a lot gorier and violent, probably to make teen boys attach to the message better.

Spirited Away is arguably Miyazaki's most evocative world. Yes, the animation is great but that's not all it has going for it. Fun story:

Back when Spirited Away came out there was no Netflix. Fortunately up here in Seattle we had Scarecrow Video, which would do crazy things like rent you that 15-years-out-of-print VHS of Mr. Mom if you put a $1000 deposit on your credit card. And Scarecrow had a Region 3 DVD you could rent. I think it only had a $500 deposit.

I had a Region-free DVD player, which was damn handy. However, it was a Chinese region-free while the DVD was Japanese and the video track topology didn't quite line up. So I put in the DVD and found myself watching a bunch of subtitled storyboards.

But that was the thing. The storyboards of Spirited Away were engaging enough that I spent half an hour thinking "huh - I guess Miyazaki has gone conceptual" before deciding that if they hadn't switched to the stuff in the trailer by now, something must be wrong. But I was willing to buy it clear through the point where her parents turn into pigs because even the pencil sketches that Ghibli put our are evocative enough to carry the story.

Miyazaki himself drew the water for Ponyo. He didn't farm it out. He figured it was important to convey the story. And the water is certainly impressive.