One of the most recent ones I watched was Whisper of the Heart. It can be summed up as “girl meets a cute guy, girl wants to be an author, writes about a cat in a parallel universe, finds an antique shop, random proposal at the end”, it was like watching a clipshow. I remember reading reviews for Totoro and them trying really hard to beat around the bush with “ah it doesn’t have a cohesive plot, buuuut…” and then the rest of the review, almost like they didn’t care because it was Studio Ghibli. I’ve seen movies panned for that (e.g. Alita Battle Angel or Spiderman 2).