History Main / GhibliHills

* RobinHood and his Merry Men live in the wilderness of Sherwood Forest -- always.

->''"They say he is already in the forest of Arden, and a many merry men with him; and there they live like the old RobinHood of England: they say many young gentlemen flock to him every day, and fleet the time carelessly, as they did in the golden world."''

* ''Anime/PokemonTheSeries'': Like most anime with RPG roots, the series' universe has a literal overworld, with the characters heading through Ghibli Hills frequently. The show's cities and towns are separated from each other by miles and miles of lush, pristine wilderness, with rolling meadows, dense forests, and rugged mountains with a day or two's walk of even the busiest, most built-up cities, seemingly crossed only by occasional dirt paths. Of course, all this wilderness is also home to all sorts of Pokémon, meaning that potentially large and dangerous creatures can be found roaming around quite close to major settlements.

* ''Webcomic/TheInexplicableAdventuresOfBob'' has [[IncrediblyLamePun Pitcheresk]] Forest, a lush woodland that exists just outside the main setting of Generictown. Described as "where refugees and wanderers seem to wind up, hereabouts." It is very beautiful but easy to get lost in. It has at least one [[BearsAreBadNews dangerous bear]] and a [[HiddenElfVillage hidden village]] of [[BigfootSasquatchAndYeti Bigfeet.]] Spending much time in the place seems to cause CharacterDevelopment.

** Falkreath hold in ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]'', is a more classic example. There are only two settlements in the entire hold (Falkreath itself and the ruined village of Helgen), the land is sprawling with forests and animals, and the main industry seems to be logging.

* ''LightNovel/KinosJourney'' has some lovely scenery between cities.

-->--'''Charles''', ''Theatre/AsYouLikeIt''

** Justified in TalesOfVesperia where [[RandomEncounters Monster Attacks]] aren't just a gameplay element.

Of course, despite its soothing grass, great blue skies and small animals, Ghibli Hills is still a lawless wilderness, crawling with [[RandomEncounters dangerous monsters]], [[TheHighwayman highwaymen]], wild magic and [[AdventureFriendlyWorld adventure]]. It is a popular home for people who need to live beyond the reach of unjust officials, bought judges, and corrupt law enforcers in the city. In older works, written in times when most people lived in the countryside and so were less moved by the greenery, this freedom from injustice was its main allure, where it may chiefly contrast with the DecadentCourt.

In video games it often overlaps with GreenHillZone as the first step on a hero's journey, and as such [[SortingAlgorithmOfThreateningGeography is bound to contrast with its]] [[{{Mordor}} various]] [[GrimUpNorth final]] [[PlanetHeck destinations]]. See also TheLostWoods, although those are visibly more dangerous and thus usually traversed later on.

* ''Manga/WitchHatAtelier'''s art style and world-building is literally just composed entirely ''out'' of Ghibli Hills. [[SugarWiki/AwesomeArt Awesome Art]] is an ''understatement'' when it comes to this manga, as the panel art blends the Ghibli Hills into Scenery Porn on another level. There is a saying that reading Witch Hat Atelier is akin to reading a Studio Ghibli film. They are ''not'' exagerrating.
* ''Anime/PokemonTheSeries'': Like most anime with RPG roots, the series' universe has a literal overworld, with the characters heading through Ghibli Hills frequently. The show's cities and towns are separated from each other by miles and miles of lush, pristine wilderness, with rolling meadows, dense forests and rugged mountains with a day or two's walk of even the busiest, most built-up cities, seemingly crossed only by occasional dirt paths. Of course, all this wilderness is also home to all sorts of Pokémon, meaning that potentially large and dangerous creatures can be found roaming around quite close to major settlements.

* ''Manga/NonNonBiyori'' seems to relish in this. The girls' daily adventures take them through mountains, lush meadows, picturesque paddy fields, babbling brooks and rivers and rustling forests. Heck, even their schoolhouse has views to die for in every direction!

* ''Manga/HotarubiNoMoriE'' uses such woods as its principal setting, with all the spirits, monsters, mysteries and romance that implies.

* The future city in ''WesternAnimation/MeetTheRobinsons'' is surrounded by lush green hills under blue skies, with the Robinsons house atop one of the hills. In the BadFuture controlled by Doris, [[{{Shadowland}} the city]] becomes an over-industrialized CrapsackWorld.

* In the fourteenth century work "The Outlaw's Song", he praises the forest because he can live there outside the reach of falsehood and injustice.

** In the expansion pack, this terrain only appears late in the campaign, in a land left battered by magical warfare. The damage still shows in the form of cultists, omnipresent rain and lightning, and oddly-colored skies.

*** Vvardenfell has large tracts of unspoiled wilderness between cities and towns, much of which is quite beautiful. However, because Vvardenfell is a sparsely populated island which only opened to outside settlement a few decades before the start of the game, many of these areas are still wild, untamed, and dangerous.

*** Cyrodiil has large tracks of unspoiled wilderness, veering closer to {{Arcadia}} thanks the Imperial Legion patrols who keep it (mostly) safe for travelers.

*** The Emerald Dragonshrine is protected by Alystros and Ysera of the Green Dragonflight and remains a pristine eden-like garden.

* The FirstTown in ''VideoGame/TheWitcher'' is a subversion of this. The village of Murky Waters appears later than half-way through the game. Though ominously named, it's [[{{Arcadia}} the most peaceful place in the game]], filled with beautiful rolling hills, pleasant people who actually respect and appreciate witchers, and light, optional action. [[spoiler: Of course, like everywhere else, Geralt leaves it in ruins.]]

* ''VideoGame/JetForceGemini'' has a [[SingleBiomePlanet planet-wide]] example with Rith Essa. The game's instruction manual explains in detail how lush and beautiful the scenery in this planet is.

* ''VideoGame/RedDeadRedemption'' features a large forest in the game's final territory. While random encounters can happen there, the area is mostly meant for hunting, as the game's most valuable and dangerous animals spawn only on this area. It's located within a few minutes of horse riding from Blackwater, the most advanced town in the game. (The game takes place from 1911 and 1914)

* In ''Webcomic/{{Annyseed}}'' you have only to cross the road from the school yard, and there you are, in an untouched woodland paradise.

** It's likely that Earthbending has agricultural applications which makes this possible.

** The US State of Minnesota. Most of the population live in the Twin Cities area which, despite being the state's major hub, takes up only a small portion of the state. Go past the boundaries of the Twin Cities, and with the exception of some small towns, farmland and the small city of Duluth, it's all wilderness complete with forests to the north and prairies in the south, and the largest wolf population in the United States.

** The Wasatch Front (the western slopes of the Wasatch Mountains) in Utah is home to two million people strung out along a 120-mile long north-south axis. It's an average of 5 miles wide and never reaches a width of more than 18 miles. Ten minutes to the east and you're in deep forest and/or open grassy plateaus. Thirty minutes to the west and you're in barren salt flats and deserts. Two hours to the south, you're in arid redrock country. One hour to the north, vibrant farmland. The next major urban area is 300+ miles in any direction. Even ''in'' the Wasatch Front, if there are enough rain clouds (which isn't horribly often though), the Wasatch Mountains look like [[Literature/TheLordOfTheRings the Misty Mountains]].
** Juneau, Alaska. Even the cheapest apartments have stellar views of unspoiled spruce and hemlock forests, and the university is a short drive from a giant glacier. Getting to an area of virgin woodland is a matter of about a five minute walk in any direction.

** The Pine Barrens in New Jersey contain vast expanses of undeveloped forest. This is the most densely-populated state in the US, nestled within easy access of Philadelphia and New York City, yet one can drive down isolated roads with nothing but dwarf pine trees in sight. The soil is very sandy and cranberries and blueberries are grown in the area. Most of these forests are within the Pinelands National Reserve, limiting land use. The Pine Barrens also originated the stories of the Jersey Devil.

** You'll find a lot of this near Vancouver, B.C, Canada, and the neighboring Vancouver Island. It's where they've gone to find the forests for things like ''Film/TheCabinInTheWoods'', the ''Film/{{Percy Jackson|And The Olympians}}'' series, and ''Film/ThePredator''.
** The Badlands in South Dakota are a cluster of rocky hills, and not extremely far from some very famous land marks such as Mt. Rushmore and Crazy Horse.

** The UsefulNotes/HomeCounties that surround London are steadily becoming more urbanised but still have large areas of countryside. The Surrey hills are particularly nice. UsefulNotes/LondonTown itself is surrounded by a government created "Green Belt" area, with development restricted.

** "Cleckhuddersfax"[[note]]Cleckhuddersfax is a nick name for the part of the Leeds/Bradford area made up of Cleckheaton, Huddersfield and Halifax [[/note]] in Yorkshire has nice, relatively undisturbed woodland a ten minute walk from civilisation.

** The natural reserve in the Rila mountain that is one hour away (when you finally leave the city). By the way Rila mountain is the highest mountain in South-Eastern Europe. So yeah...

** Nearly all the parts of Slovenia that aren't cities/towns/villages. Sometimes during a drive between one village to another, when a road goes through a forest, etc., there can be a feel you are kilometers from civilization. That's also because the forests are original ones, not introduced back by forestation that has even spaces between trees, which makes it look artificial.

** Salzburg in Austria features a lot such areas, seeing how the town is built into what is essentially [[https://maps.google.nl/maps?q=salzburg&hl=en&ll=47.799175,13.050942&spn=0.01747,0.045447&sll=55.94622,-3.149128&sspn=0.029126,0.090895&t=h&hnear=Salzburg,+Austria&z=15 a gorge around a river]]. The by far greenest and least disturbed areas in a five kilometer radius are all in 10-minute walking distance from the central Domplatz, seated on top of ''tall, steep mountains'' that seem to shoot ''right'' out of the densely built city. One of these mountains, the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Festungsberg Festungsberg]], has the famous Salzburg castle built atop of it, while most of the other ones (such as the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%B6nchsberg Mönchsberg]], [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainberg Rainberg]], [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kapuzinerberg Kapuzinerberg]], and [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaisberg Gaisberg]]) are almost untouched, despite being ''literally'' in spitting distance of urban Salzburg.
** The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Spain Green Spain]] counts too. Even at the outskirts of its cities you can find forests, green meadows, and mountains almost touching them in some cases. Go farther away and unless going to the north (Cantabrian Sea, plus a significant number of [[MisplacedVegetation eucalyptus groves]] planted for their wood) you'll find sylvan forests, more -- and higher -- mountains, more green meadows, and beautiful landscapes. The best is the contrast after going southwards and crossing the Cantabrian Mountains with the vast, almost flat and forest-free and much drier expanses of Spain's central plateau.

** Sydney is particularly JustForFun/{{egregious}} with this. Unless (or in some cases even if) you're on the major transport corridors, you're likely to be in the wilderness, often officially. This is entirely justified however, mainly due to the very rough terrain surrounding the Sydney Basin, which is full of canyons, steep valleys and thick vegetation.

** Go to a map. Look for Australia. Look for New South Wales, and go to its most North-Eastern point. That region is called "The Northern Rivers". Here one will find The Caldera, so named for the fact that the entire region was once a large shield volcano that went extinct. All the mountains there are the result of erosion, leading to rounded yet striking mountains. In the centre you will find Mt. Warning (Wollumbin), the first point each morning in all of Australia to be struck by the light of dawn. Much of the "pristine-ness" of the region is simply due to both the enormous amount of crownland (land that cannot be settled due to steepness or inaccessibility, or even logged practically) and the fact that most of population there lives in either villages of varying size or in Murwillumbah, the largest town in the Caldera, with a population of less than 8,000. Despite the number of farms (the region might better fit in 'Arcadia' for this reason) they are usually small and hardly damage the land (leave a farm for a few dozen years and it looks like old-growth). Examples on the other wiki [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mount_Warning.jpg here]] and [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rosin%27s_Lookout_Beechmont_Queensland.jpg here]] on the Other Wiki. There is a reason the area is filled with hippies, ex-hippies and general environmentalists.
** Tasmania, Australia's southernmost state, and being so small and distant from the rest of the world, is largely still countryside; the population is only just over half a million, and it shows. North of Hobart, there's a bit of brown, and then nothing but forests, mountains and green hills as far as the eye can see, and this continues until you hit the northernmost tip of the island. The south-west of the state is almost entirely forested and has remained well-protected from logging and mining companies for years now.

** Despite being a humongous metropolis built on a relatively mountain-less plain, UsefulNotes/{{Seoul}} has approximately 40 mountains doted across the city limits. Once you're climbing one of those mountains, you will be surrounded by complete wilderness, minus the hiking path and the hikers. But the immersion breaks when you try to look at the scenery from the mountain as there will be a [[MegaCity sprawling city that spans for miles]].

* Ironically, the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea has turned into this. It's a 2.5 mile wide strip of land running from the Sea of Japan to the Yellow Sea that has been uninhabited by humans since 1953, with fences and military patrols on both sides insuring that there's no poaching or illegal logging, so it's become a flourishing habitat for plants and animals that have become rare or extinct in the rest of the peninsula. And Seoul is just a stone's throw from it.

* ''Manga/WitchHatAtelier'': Witch Hat Atelier's artstyle and world-building is literally just composed entirely ''out'' of Ghibli Hills. [[SugarWiki/AwesomeArt Awesome Art]] is an ''understatement'' when it comes to this manga, as the panel art blends the Ghibli Hills into Scenery Porn on another level. There is a saying that reading Witch Hat Atelier is akin to reading a Studio Ghibli film. They are ''not'' exagerrating.

* ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'', quite frequently. Consider, for example, the Ilex Forest which is just a stone's throw from the metropolis Goldenrod City. Generation III in particular takes this trope and turns it UpToEleven.

* The ''VideoGame/EarthBound'' [[GameMod ROM Hack]] ''VideoGame/{{Unearthed}}'' seems to take place in a more rural setting than the game it's based on, at least when it's not taking place underground. There's still modern houses and roads and such, but generally there's much more focus on natural forests, and Mitch himself seems to live on a farm, or at least near a place where cultivating fruits and vegetables are common.

Sometimes overlaps with SceneryPorn. Compare to WildWilderness if its a modern setting set in large wilderness areas like the [[UsefulNotes/TheOtherRainforest North Western]] [[FantasyAmericana United States]] or Black Forest area of Germany.

* ''Manga/WitchHatAtelier'': Witch Hat Atelier's artstyle and world-building is literally just composed entirely ''out'' of Ghibli Hills. [[SugarWiki/AwesomeArt]] is an ''understatement'' when it comes to this manga, as the panel art blends the Ghibli Hills into Scenery Porn on another level. There is a saying that reading Witch Hat Atelier is akin to reading a Studio Ghibli film. They are ''not'' exagerrating.

* All over the place in ''VideoGame/{{Okami}}''. As Amaterasu purifies Nippon of the evil influence corrupting it, the areas erupt in flowers and trees to form pristine, gorgeous landscapes.

* The "VideoGame/{{Pikmin}}" series has very peaceful and beautiful outdoor levels, complete with very calm music.

* ''{{Anime/Pokemon}}'': Like most anime with RPG roots, the universe of has a literal overworld, with the characters heading through Ghibli Hills frequently. The show's cities and towns are separated from each other by miles and miles of lush, pristine wilderness, with rolling meadows, dense forests and rugged mountains with a day or two's walk of even the busiest, most built-up cities, seemingly crossed only by occasional dirt paths. Of course, all this wilderness is also home to all sorts of Pokémon, meaning that potentially large and dangerous creatures can be found roaming around quite close to major settlements.

* Used more darkly in ''Anime/PomPoko''. The {{tanuki}} (raccoons in the English dub) start out living happily in the Tama Hills west of Tokyo until the city starts encroaching on their territory. Soon the tanuki are forced to use their legendary powers of illusion in an increasingly desperate struggle to protect their forests, even going so far as to [[{{Masquerade}} reveal their fantastical existence]] in a final plea for the environment. In the end [[spoiler: the defeated tanuki combine their powers for one last nostalgic illusion depicting their forests as they once were to show the humans what had been lost]]. Ironically, the next Studio Ghibli film, ''Anime/WhisperOfTheHeart'' is set in the very same Tama New Town suburb created by this development.

** ''WesternAnimation/TheSecretOfKells'': Brendan's first visit to the forest outside the abbey definitely counts, particularly after he meets Aisling and they explore the woods together.

** ''WesternAnimation/{{Wolfwalkers}}'' puts emphasis on the differences between the town of Kilkenny and the forest outside of it, showing the forest as a wild, beautiful place that represents freedom in contrast to how strict and rigidly controlled life is in the town.

** ''WesternAnimation/TheSecretOfKells'': Brendan's first visit to the forest definitely counts, particularly after he meets Aisling and they explore the woods together.

** ''WesternAnimation/{{Wolfwalkers}}'' puts emphasis on the differences between the town of Kilkenny and the forest outside of it, showing the forest as a wild, beautiful place that represents freedom in contrast to how rigid and strictly controlled life is in the town.

* Creator/CartoonSaloon's [[ThematicSeries Irish Folklore Trilogy]] movies all feature this to some degree:

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSecretOfKells''. Though the ENTIRE film could suffice, Brendan's first visit to the forest definitely counts, particularly after he meets Aisling.

-->--'''Creator/WilliamShakespeare,''' ''Theatre/AsYouLikeIt''

*** Hey, even in its very own capital itself, Warsaw, you will find quite a lot of forests which are directly intergrated into some cities and districts, like Marysin for example, this district is almost surrounded by a forest!