As any Studio Ghibli fan will testify, an afternoon spent binging Hayao Miyazaki classics is guaranteed to leave a warm, fuzzy feeling inside. Now, this feeling is backed by science. A study published by JMIR Serious Games, a peer reviewed journal focused on how gaming is connected to education, health, and social change, looked into how the brain responds to both watching films produced by the Japanese animation studio and playing the open-world game The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

The researchers gathered 518 postgraduate students and divided them into four groups. Some played Breath of the Wild and some watched Studio Ghibli films like My Neighbor Totoro and Kiki’s Delivery Service, while others did both and a control group did neither. Researchers then measured feelings of ex

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