One of the reasons why these characters are so compelling is depth. As Roger Ebert put it, many directors pitch their movies at 10-year-olds and claim they are for the "whole family" while Miyazaki makes a movie that adults found fascinating at the Berlin, Telluride, and Toronto festivals and claims it is for 10-year-olds. Of course, Miyazaki isn't the only one who's responsible for Studio Ghibli characters, but this explanation perfectly describes the filmmakers' approach.
'Complexity' applies to Ghibli movie narratives as well. You can watch its movie over and over again and still not fully get it. And the fact that studio representatives give very few articles or agree to so little articles only adds to the mystery surrounding it. There's even a thing called "The Curse of Ghibli", a theory amongst Japanese financial traders, implying that Studio Ghibli is somehow hexed and can damage the stock and currency markets. Apparently, whenever a Ghibli movie airs in the country, bad things happen. They say some traders and investors pay attention to TV schedules for this reason.
Whatever the case might be, we may never really know everything about our beloved Ghibli characters. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing.
